Derik Queen meets with handful of NBA teams at Draft Combine, draws praise from former NBA All-Star

Ahmed Ghafir
22 hours ago
3 min read

Former Maryland star center Derik Queen will look to become the program’s highest NBA Draft selection in over a decade during next month’s draft with all signs still pointing to the five-star as a lottery bound selection. The Nets and Raptors, who hold the eighth and ninth pick in June’s NBA Draft, are two who have been linked to Queen since the draft order was finalized earlier in the week, but former St. Frances teammate and Wizards rookie guard Bub Carrington made his pitch for the Baltimore tandem to reunite in DC.

“I just know my Baltimore buddy, I think he should come home,” Carrington said following the lottery selection show on Monday night.

Queen didn’t suit up in Wednesday’s scrimmages after measuring in at 6-foot-10.5, 248-pounds with a wingspan just over seven feet and a standing reach just shy of ten feet. But he has already met with the Orlando Magic, Atlanta Hawks, Denver Nuggets, Toronto Raptors and Utah Jazz, per Josh Robbins of The Athletic, with the caveat that the Nuggets enter June’s NBA Draft without a draft selection.

“I’ve never been to Toronto. I heard it’s nice, but I heard they got the worst taxes also,” Queen joked with Libaan Osman of the Toronto Star.

Former Wizards star Gilbert Arenas was the latest to tab Queen as “a young Jokic” before arguing why the former five-star might be the best fit for the San Antonio Spurs, though buzz has since materialized that former Rutgers guard Dylan Harper is likely to become the second pick after Cooper Flagg.

“Whoever gets him, you got a steal and if you’re not a smart general manager, he will slip in the [NBA] Draft like Jokic did,” Arenas said on All The Smoke podcast with Matt Barnes. “When you’re in these drafts and you’re playing one by yourself, you’re not going to see his skillset. The skillset that he has is a five-on-five game. So you’re sitting there playing by yourself, you don’t see his vision, you can’t see none of that. He looks too slow. You can’t see how he plays his body right.”

The Brooklyn Nets and Toronto Raptors have emerged as two early candidates to draft Queen with Yahoo projecting him to land in Brooklyn.

Yahoo: "Queen is a burly big with guard-like handles who dazzles with spin moves and crafty finishes, like his game-winning leaning jumper to send Maryland to the Sweet 16. From early in his career with the Nets, he can make an impact with those interior skills. The question is how long, if ever, it’ll take to translate his velvet touch to the perimeter. If he does that, he has an offensive star upside. But his interior scoring, playmaking chops, and magnetic rebounding alone give him tantalizing potential. Those traits make him an intriguing fit for a team with a clean slate like the Nets."

Queen, who declared for the NBA Draft on SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt, led Maryland last season with 16.5 points per game while posting nine rebounds. His 594 points set the Terps' freshman scoring record, while his 16.5 points per game were second overall. Highlighted by his 27-point outing against Florida in the Sweet 16, Queen produced 12 20-point scoring games and 15 double-doubles during the year. He gained national acclaim with his buzzer-beating, game-winner against Colorado State in the NCAA Tournament Second Round. The stardom began after his first game in a Maryland uniform after posting 22 points and 20 rebounds vs. Manhattan, becoming just the second college basketball player since 1996-97 to post a 20-20 game in his freshman debut.

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