{"id":10872,"date":"2025-07-15T05:30:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T05:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/10872\/"},"modified":"2025-07-15T05:30:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T05:30:06","slug":"baby-joker-derik-queen-has-tools-to-be-next-great-playmaking-big-man-andscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/10872\/","title":{"rendered":"Baby Joker? Derik Queen has tools to be next great playmaking big man \u2014 Andscape"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS \u2014 It took just a quarter into his debut summer league game for New Orleans Pelicans center Derik Queen to show a glimpse of his playmaking skills.<\/p>\n

At about the eight-minute mark of the second quarter against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Queen sprinted up the right side of the court after a missed basket on the other end. The No. 13 overall pick from June\u2019s NBA draft received a pass in the short corner all alone. He took one dribble toward the basket before a defender shifted over to contest. But in the process, the Timberwolves\u2019 defender left his man, 7-foot-2 center Hunter Dickinson, wide open.<\/p>\n

Queen gave a slight upward twitch as if he were going to attempt a shot, but at the last second wrapped the ball behind the right side of his body for a no-look bounce pass to a streaking Dickinson, who made an easy layup.<\/p>\n

Queen was a silky bruiser in college last season for Maryland, leading the Terrapins in points and rebounds per game, but it\u2019s his unheralded passing that could make him the next great playmaking big man, \u00e0 la the three-time MVP for the Denver Nuggets, Nikola Joki\u0107.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, he\u2019s a great passer,\u201d Queen said of Joki\u0107, whose nickname is Joker. \u201cI don\u2019t think I pass as well as him, but I mean, I think it\u2019s a baseline, it\u2019s a start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Queen averaged 16 points, nine rebounds, one steal and one block for Maryland last year. He had an incredible showing in the postseason, scoring 31 points against Michigan in the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament and hitting the game-winning, buzzer-beater against Colorado State in the second round of the NCAA men\u2019s tournament that sent Maryland to the Sweet 16. <\/p>\n

Queen finished his lone college season as Big Ten Freshman of the Year, a first-team All-Big Ten selection and a member of the All-Big Ten tournament team and Big Ten All-Freshman team.<\/p>\n

Even with a 6-foot-10, 246-pound frame, Queen can move well for his size and has respectable ballhandling skills that make him an excellent finisher at the basket. His offensive game can best be compared to that of Slowpoke<\/a>, the Pok\u00e9mon character best known for taking his sweet time to move himself around. Queen\u2019s Eurosteps are slow and methodical, confusing the defender of where \u2014 and when \u2014 his next step will take place.<\/p>\n

In August 2024, Queen told former NBA player Matt Barnes, now a podcaster, that his game has been compared to Joki\u0107, whose vision, ball placement and timing have made him one of the most versatile and unstoppable big men in NBA history. That, and Joki\u0107 never seems to be in much of a hurry.<\/p>\n

\u201cCause we\u2019re both slow,\u201d Queen told Barnes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"New Orleans Pelicans center Derik Queen handles the ball during a preseason game against the Minnesota Timberwolves at the 2025 NBA Summer League on July 10 at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Ryan Stetz\/NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Queen has good vision and appears to always have his head on a swivel to identify open teammates. Near the end of the second quarter of the Timberwolves\u2019 game, Queen blew past a defender on his way to the paint. The center guarding the basket shifted over to collapse on Queen, which caused another defender to shift over to the center\u2019s man. This freed up fellow rookie Micah Peavy, who Queen immediately saw and kicked out to him for an open 3-pointer.<\/p>\n

Even when teammates aren\u2019t open, Queen finds pockets to fit in tight passes, though that\u2019s an area he wants to improve.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely opens up a lot,\u201d he said of pocket passes.<\/p>\n

The key to being a good playmaker, he said, is understanding the defensive scheme you\u2019re going against. If the scouting report says the opponent typically collapses when the ball handler enters the paint, then Queen knows there should be an open teammate.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s just basically me implementing all the defensive sets I\u2019ve been learning throughout the years of basketball that I\u2019ve been playing and just knowing where everybody should be and then just making passes.\u201d<\/p>\n

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All that said, Queen barely registered two assists per game last season at Maryland. There can be myriad reasons for that, including that Queen wasn\u2019t the primary ball-handler and the offense didn\u2019t feature him much in a playmaking role.<\/p>\n

Queen said it was also \u201ca mindset thing,\u201d but added that the Pelicans\u2019 system will allow him to be more of a facilitator. Queen had three assists against the Timberwolves and would have had a fourth if the defense had not forced a jump ball after a pass he made.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere I get to showcase it a little bit more because I probably have a lot of opportunities to score and maximize,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, [I\u2019ve] got to get my teammates involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not uncommon for someone with so few assists in college to become an elite passer and playmaker at the next level. Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green is the hub of an offense that has run like a well-oiled machine for more than a decade. Green averaged just 2.9 assists in four seasons at Michigan State. In three full seasons with the Sacramento Kings, center Domantas Sabonis averages more than seven assists per game. In college, he had seven assists in a game once in two years.<\/p>\n

Queen has a long way to go before he can be mentioned in the same sentence as Joki\u0107, who last season averaged 29 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists. Queen said he needs to clean up his ballhandling, work on precision passes, and become more of a perimeter threat. He attempted just 35 3-pointers in 36 games last season, converting on 20% of them.<\/p>\n

But after a couple of summer league games, the seeds are being planted for Queen to join the list of great playmaking big men in the NBA.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see flashes of how good he\u2019s going to be,\u201d Pelicans summer league coach Corey Brewer said. \u201cAnd for him, it\u2019s good to get the first game out the way. The next game, trust me, he\u2019ll be a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martenzie Johnson is a senior writer for Andscape. His favorite cinematic moment is when Django said, “Y’all want to see somethin?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 It took just a quarter into his debut summer league game for New Orleans Pelicans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-10872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}