Gradey Dick's Former Coaches Share What Makes him Special & Why Raptors Should Be Excited

The Toronto Raptors have a special kind of player in Gradey Dick with the confidence like few others, his former coaches say

Aaron Rose | Jul 11, 2023

BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK

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Ask those around Gradey Dick when they first knew he was going to be a high NBA draft pick and the answers will differ. For some, it was his big-time bucket to knock off Duke in November of his freshman season at Kansas. For others, it came in high school when the 6-foot-8 sharpshooter transferred to Sunrise Christian Academy as a junior to expedite his development. But few people will give you an answer as early as Dick’s youth basketball coach Allen Skeens.

For Skeens, the realization came in 2018 in the finals of the Jr. NBA tournament when Dick was just 14 years old. The future Toronto Raptors first-round pick wasn’t even a starter for the United States’ Central squad. The team was loaded with talent, Skeens said, and playing in one of the most prestigious youth basketball competitions in the world. But as the fourth quarter wound down, the Africa & Middle East team was giving the Central boys a run for their money.

Skeens called a timeout with just over five minutes to go. He’d seen his team squander a healthy lead and now the Americans were up just one.

The goal was simple: Find Dick in the corner.

The American point guard Mozae Downing-Rivers drove to the bucket, freed up by a ball screen above the break, and when Dick’s defender slid over to protect the rim, Downing-Rivers fired it to Dick.

Bucket.

“He wasn’t afraid to take the shot. Wasn’t afraid of the moment,” said Skeens, who runs the Drive5 Power Elite teams and was the head coach of the championship Central team in the tournament. “He took it in rhythm after sitting on the bench a little bit and when his number got called, he delivered.”

It takes a special kind of player to make that shot, Skeens added. It requires confidence, the kind of confidence that allows someone to goof around on TikTok, wear a sparkly red suit on draft night, and be completely comfortable being themselves.

That’s what the Raptors love about Dick and what those who have coached him say makes him unique.

Through two Summer League games so far Dick hasn’t exactly shown the kind of shooting stroke he was known for coming out of college. He’s just 8-for-25 from the field and 3-for-12 from deep. And yet, every time the ball is swung his way, he’s still attacking, either letting it fly from deep, stepping into a mid-range jumper when his defender closes out too hard, or using the extra attention defenses are paying him to find teammates on the perimeter.

“He is a free spirit both on the floor and off the floor,” said Luke Barnwell, Dick’s former Sunrise Christian Academy coach. “It helps him so much as a shooter because I think he has a free mind, a confident mind, a little bit of amnesia.”

The Raptors need that kind of player in every way this year. Last season they ranked among the league’s worst three-point shooting teams and if good vibes was some sort of quantifiable stat, they probably would have ranked near the bottom of the league in that too.

While Dick doesn’t mind being known as a shooter, it’s a term others try to avoid using to describe him. He’s a lot more than that, said L.J. Goolsby, Dick’s AAU basketball coach for the KC Run GMC. His passing is most impressive and usually tabbed as his second-best offensive skill, his former coaches all said.

And yet, he’s a “shooter” for a reason. Few players have the kind of quick release and picture-perfect form that Dick possesses.

“There’s only one person I’ve coached that shoots the ball better and he just won an NBA championship a couple of weeks ago,” said Skeens, referring to Michael Porter Jr. who has a 41.7% three-point stroke for his NBA career.

The comparison to Porter is an interesting one because it works on both sides of the ball. For all of Porter’s shooting prowess, he came into the league as a sub-par defender with work to do on his defensive technique. Skeens sees Dick as being slightly ahead of Porter on the defensive end at this stage of his career, but there’s still work to do.

“He’s got to be attentive. He has the mental capacity. He understands the game, he understands angles, but physically he’s got to compete,” Skeens added of Dick’s defense. “He needs to learn to do is, hey, I’m not going to get away with what I got away with against little kids just because I’m bigger, I’ve got to use my length and take good angles.”

Figuring that out shouldn’t be a problem, though. Nor should much of anything Toronto asks of Dick, his former coaches all seem to agree. He’s a willing learner and a player who will be comfortable in whatever role the Raptors ask him to play.

That’s what separates Dick from a lot of other young players who come into the league having always been the superstar on their teams. With Dick, that hasn’t always been the case and when he’s been asked to come off the bench or play a role he may not be used to, as will be the case this season in Toronto, he’s accepted it without issue.

“He’s a winner. He’s a competitor and he’s never going to be satisfied and he’s got a great work ethic,” said Skeens. “I think he’ll be a fan favorite.”

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