I Believe in Danny Wolf

Michigan's Danny Wolf took college basketball by storm last year. Could the NBA be next? Maxwell examines NBA trends, historical data, and Wolf's game to find the answer.

I’m really bad at golf. As a big dude who enjoys lifting weights, I can hit the ball really hard. With that being said, my overall skill level in the sport is horrific. I have to position my body askew because I have a tendency to turn my wrists outward before making contact with the ball, forcing it way off to the right consistently. Unfortunately, this means that when I accidentally don’t use my incorrect form, the ball goes way to the left. My short game is trash. I’ll either send the ball sailing over the pin or barely touch the thing, leaving it way short. And forget about putting. I have no idea how to read greens, and my touch is terrible.

Still, I like the idea of golf. The low-impact nature of the sport makes it one that you can play into your older years. Most of all, though, I love that it cannot be perfected. No one is going to get through a course in 18 strokes. No two rounds will ever be the same. There are always shots that could have gone better and situations that should have been played differently.

Let me clarify even further. I like the idea of golf. I don’t love it. It’s just… not my thing. It’s not something I’ve ever been compelled to get better at. Improving my golf game would require a significant amount of time and money, both of which I’m sure my wife would prefer I allocate to other endeavors.

I do love basketball, though. And what appeals to me a little bit about golf appeals to me a lot about scouting. No two players or evaluations will ever be the same. Every draft, I will learn new lessons and have new data points to work from. I can get better, but I’ll never be perfect. Perhaps even more interestingly: even when I’m right, I can still be wrong.

That brings us to today’s topic, Danny Wolf. For those just dropping in, Wolf is a 6’10.5” center out of Michigan (by way of Yale) with a dazzling array of ball skills who is currently projected as a first-round pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.

Every off-season, I write a series called “No Stone Unturned,” focusing on players who weren’t on initial mock drafts for the upcoming season and have never been invited to the NBA Combine or G League Elite Camp. This summer, I covered Wolf for the series. Very cool! I was early, so I get to take a victory lap, right?

In the words of the legendary Lee Corso, “NOT SO FAST, MY FRIEND!” Because even when you’re right in scouting, you can still be wrong. My assessment that Wolf had a chance to crack NBA Draft radars was correct. However, let’s revisit my concluding paragraph…

Wolf may face some ups and downs during his first high-major season. The speed of the game could cause some hiccups, and the fact that Michigan has another great college center in Vladislav Goldin could eat into his minutes. Regardless of how this coming season goes, Wolf remains an interesting long-term proposition. The NBA has a hankering for dribble-pass-shoot big men right now. Few 20-year-olds (Wolf doesn’t turn 21 until May) have this particular combination of size and skill. The fact that he’s 7’0” and 250 pounds shouldn’t go overlooked—he’s huge. Still, he’ll need to make strides on the defensive end. If Wolf can even sniff competence on that end, NBA interest should come his way. The path that Quinten Post followed to draftability is on the table here. I’m eyeing Wolf as more of a 2026 prospect, but even so, his quirky offensive arsenal warrants attention.

More of a 2026 prospect? Whoopsie daisy! I’ll be honest—I didn’t see THIS coming. If you’d have told me before the season that Wolf was a 2025 guy, I’d have assumed that he was someone who stayed in for an opportunity in the second round. That still would have been wrong. I was much more certain of Miles Rubin and Yaxel Lendeborg as eventual NBA players than I was of Wolf. And the fact that I was wrong about Wolf while acknowledging his rapid improvement trajectory has me scared about underestimating him yet again. I believe in Danny Wolf. Maybe this time I’ll be wrong again. Who knows. But my beliefs are firm, and I want to outline my reasons for them here today.

Let’s Talk About the Playoffs

Let’s talk about some of the trends we’ve seen from the semifinal teams in this year’s NBA playoffs.

-Bigs have to be more skilled now than in years past. Players like Karl-Anthony Towns, Julius Randle, Naz Reid, Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein, Myles Turner, and Pascal Siakam all have ways to play out on the perimeter, be it through their ball-handling, passing, or shooting. If you want to go deeper, look at Jaylin Williams. Heck, even if you look at teams that had bad injury luck like the Celtics or Cavaliers, you’ll find even more of these polished big men like Al Horford, Kristaps Porzingis, and Evan Mobley. The best teams play big men who can do stuff with the rock. And the big men who struggle in that respect have a different elite signature skill. Mitchell Robinson is an exceptional offensive rebounder, and Ruby Gobert has long been one of the Association’s greatest defenders.

-Teams are leaning back into playing two big men together more frequently. Owen Phillips did a fantastic job detailing the success of double-big lineups in a recent edition of The F5. If you’re going to play that way, you typically need at least one of those big men to be away from the basket on offense.

-As a result of The Skilled Big Renaissance, five-out and similar concepts aren’t going away. These schemes are still in place; they’re just larger and more tangible.

Danny Wolf is both skilled and big. The big part is pretty straightforward—at the NBA Combine, he measured at 6’10.5” barefoot with a 7'2.25'' wingspan while tipping the scales at 251.8 pounds. This is an Andrew Bogut-sized man we’re talking about.

Now that we have that context out of the way, let’s talk about his skills.

Ball Skills

Danny Wolf’s role this year was one of the most unorthodox in the country. Per Synergy, his most common play type this past season was operating as a pick-and-roll ball-handler. That’s uncommon for a man of his physical stature. Part of the reason that Wolf was able to take on this role and succeed in it (more on that later) is that he has a great handle for a man his size.

Few big men are able to create offense for themselves on an island or out of a ball screen quite like Danny Wolf. His footwork, dribble combinations, and spatial awareness enable him to shake defenders and maneuver his way to the rim on a consistent basis. He has an impressive blend of coordination and power, and as a result, he can string together multiple moves while still maintaining his line and fighting to his spot. If a defender is too slow, he’ll put them on skates. If a defender is too small, he’ll plow through them. Wolf’s length, soft touch, and ability to contort at the rim make him an intriguing finisher.

While his 59.2% on halfcourt rim attempts trails what you would typically like to see from a big man, the fact that so much of Wolf’s shot diet is self-created makes it quite impressive. Per BartTorvik, only 35.2% of Wolf’s rim attempts were assisted this year. Let’s compare that to other bigs consistently mocked in the first round. And hey, let’s get wild with it—let’s throw in anybody who could plausibly considered a big for good measure:

Danny Wolf is the Self-Creation King of this year’s big man crop. Derik Queen is really the only other player I’d put in his tier. Raynaud has opted primarily out of post-ups and got the benefit of attacking from the second side off of spot-ups more consistently. Newell is a funky one because a lot of his looks came off of offensive rebounds and aren’t as much a product of his ability to put the ball on the floor.

So if we’re talking self-creation, it’s Wolf and Queen. You might be saying to yourself, “well, Wolf is a junior and Queen is a freshman,” but they’re closer in age than you might think. Wolf is young for his class and Queen is old for his, making them a little less than eight months apart.

What’s more, Wolf is more than willing to spread the wealth. The fruits of his creation are for all to share. It’s all here. Whether it’s a simple dish to the roll man, a quick touch pass on the interior, a heads-up sling in traffic to a cutter, or a top-of-the-key whip out of a DHO, Wolf can make it happen. His 22.8 AST% is astronomical by big man standards, and his 1.13 assist-to-turnover ratio grades out well, too. If you’re thinking assist numbers aren’t relevant for big men, think again. Assist rate and assist-to-turnover ratio are heavily correlated with NBA success, as @criggsNBA has shown through his research.

NBA offenses are becoming more complex. As a result, everyone on the floor needs to have answers to the questions posed by modern defenses. Now more than ever, big men have to be prepared to orchestrate at the top of the key, make reads out of the short roll, and dribble the ball in traffic. Wolf has shown that he’s exceedingly comfortable and confident in these settings throughout this past season at Michigan. At the next level, I don’t expect Wolf to be a primary initiator. But the fact that he can do more with the ball than the absolute basics is of great importance.

The guys who stick in the NBA tend to be the guys who did a lot at the lower levels, and then scale back their game when they get to the league. It’s hard to think of big men who’ve been tasked with doing more offensively than Danny Wolf.

Perimeter Shooting

Earlier, I touched on how skilled bigs can manage to provide spacing either by way of their playmaking or shooting. What makes Wolf all the more intriguing is that he could bring both of these traits to the table at a high level for a big man. Wolf hit 33.3% of his threes on 5.7 attempts per 100 possessions this past season, both of which are strong marks for a tall college prospect. Still, there’s been some concern about whether or not Wolf is a legitimate shooter. Part of that is his subpar free throw shooting percentage, as he went 59.4% from the line this year and 64.6% over the course of his college career. Personally, I’m lower on free throw shooting as an indicator than most, and I believe that the volume and percentage from deep demonstrates that he’s far ahead of the curve relative to most bigs entering the NBA. But when we dig deeper into both the numbers and the film, I’m even more convinced.

It’s important to consider what type of shots a prospect is taking. For example, let’s take a look at Mark Mitchell, who will be going into his senior year at Missouri next season. I was really bullish on Mitchell after his freshman year at Duke. He was big, strong, competitive, and could affect the game in a variety of ways. His big shortfall was his jump shot. He made 35.2% of his threes, which is solid, but the volume was really low.

At the time, I thought, “well, he just needs to take more of them, and he’ll be a first round pick next year.” But looking into the data, it’s not just that he shot 35.2% from three on low volume. It’s that he shot 35.2% from three on a low volume of easy shots. Per Synergy, 51 of his 55 threes were catch-and-shoot attempts. Of the 51 catch-and-shoot threes, only 14 were labeled as guarded, and he shot 28.6% on those attempts. Digging into play types, 41 of his threes were generated off spot-ups.

Basically, he could make the wide open, standstill shots when he rarely took them, but nothing else. It was a miss on my part.

Looking at Danny Wolf’s shot diet, we see a very different story. Per Synergy, Wolf took 113 threes this year. Only 62 were off the catch, and 30 of them were guarded. This also means that he launched 51 pull-up threes, an uncanny number for a player his size. While most of his threes were generated from spot-ups and pulling the trigger when defenders sagged on a ball screen, he also took a handful of attempts flying around off-ball screens, running in transition, or coming around handoffs. This stuff is uncanny. It’s not just that Wolf is a better shooter than most bigs entering the league, it’s that he’s a proven shooter on the tougher shot types that the NBA game often requires players to hit.

It’s exceedingly rare for a player Wolf’s size to have any sort of sample taking and making these types of shots. His high release point, functionality, and dynamism as a shooter make the translation of his jumper easy for me to buy.

Defense

A lot of the time, skilled bigs come with a tradeoff on the defensive end—sadly, not everybody gets to be Chet Holmgren or Victor Wembanyama.

Wolf certainly has his limitations in this respect. For starters, he’s not particularly bouncy. While his 4.6 BLK% is a poor mark for a big man, it can be partially explained by the fact that he often played alongside another big, Vladislav Goldin. As a result, he typically wasn’t the primary rim protector on the floor, and he’s shown comfort playing alongside another big man on that end.

Still, there are real concerns here. He’s slow off the floor and not much of a functional leaper around the basket. His ground coverage leaves a lot to be desired. When opponents manage to shake him at the point-of-attack, he lacks the quick-twitch burst to recover and get back in the play.

With that being said, there are still some interesting wrinkles to Wolf on the defensive end. For starters, he’s made pretty dramatic improvements to his body over the last year, so there may still be some untapped athleticism in him as he continues to adapt to his new frame. He also holds up well on the interior, as his strength allows him to hold ground against fellow big men and swallow up drivers at the rim. Wolf’s hand-eye coordination enables him to pinpoint the ball well while avoiding foul trouble. His instincts for when to double and help at the rim are solid, too.

And if you’re worried about him holding his own in space, I’ve got good news for you! Teams attempted to mismatch-hunt him quite often, and it didn’t work out well. Per Synergy, Wolf held opponents to a meager 33 points on the 58 isolation possessions he guarded this past season. While you won’t confuse him with Jaden McDaniels, Wolf moves his feet well enough to hang against speedster guards to survive a majority of the time. He uses his hand positioning well to prevent easy pull-ups, bumps opponents to knock them off their line, and generally does a good job of funneling his man into unfavorable, inefficient areas of the court.

Should I Worry About the Red Flags?

There are some real warts on Danny Wolf’s resume. The one that, in my opinion, presents the biggest challenge with regard to his NBA projection is his issue with turnovers.

This past season, Wolf posted a 21.5 TOV% and averaged 6.0 turnovers per 100 possessions. Simply put, that’s not good. Especially for a prospect who will hope to provide much of their value from their ball skills:

Wolf’s turnovers come from a little bit of everything, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. While he is capable of doing fancier dribble moves than most bigs, he’s also prone to getting too much dip on his chip and losing command of the ball. He has a tendency to get way too adventurous as a passer. He gets called for charges after barreling into opponents. Other times, he simply goes through his playmaking process too fast and rushes into mistakes. In order for Wolf to maximize his playmaking abilities, he’ll need to cut down on those mistakes.

Typically, players do manage to reduce their turnovers at the NBA level, and Wolf does deserve some grace for taking on such an absurd role for his size. Still, the question of what a scaled down version of Danny Wolf looks like is a fair one to ask. If he’s much more of a standard, stationary handoff operator who can hit threes and be an alright defender, that’s a much less enticing proposition than a player approaching Naz Reid territory.

The other statistical concern is Wolf’s lack of dunks. For the uninitiated, dunks tend to be a great shorthand gauge for functional vertical athleticism. Per Synergy, Wolf registered eight dunks this past season, which is an exceptionally low number for a big man. For added context, Luka Garza had 10 dunks in his pre-draft season. Drew Timme had 26 dunks. It’s not good!

As I previously mentioned when discussing Wolf’s defense, he’s not an easy leaper or a big-time elevator. While I always want to be careful to not make excuses for a prospect, where Wolf deserves context is that again, his role was far different than most bigs. A lot of his rim attempts were unassisted. Rarely was Wolf parked in the dunker spot (cuts only made up 7.9% of his possessions per Synergy) or rolling to the basket (13 rolls, per Synergy). Will he ever be a premier lob target? No. But is he such a bad athlete that it will disqualify him from NBA success? I don’t think so. He was toward the bottom of the NBA Combine list in a few of the athletic testing drills (three-quarter sprint, vertical, and max vert), but he tested well for a big man in the lane agility and shuttle run drills.

Overall Impact

There are two other things I like to look at when I’m evaluating a player. One is how their team performed when they were on the floor, and the other is how well the player produced against the best teams they faced.

Offensively tilted bigs with defensive shortcomings tend to develop negative reputations when they don’t hit their absolute highest levels—think Domantas Sabonis, or Julius Randle prior to this spring. If this type of player can prove that they moved the needle from a winning perspective and thrived against the highest level of competition, at least at the college level, it’s a little easier to buy into their future NBA success.

Above, you’ll see a Hoop-Explorer graph of how Michigan faired with Danny Wolf on the floor against the top third of college basketball competition, excluding garbage time minutes.

Michigan was a considerably better team when Wolf was on the floor last season. They scored more points, better controlled the turnover battle, and got more looks at the rim. Perhaps more interestingly, the Wolverines’ defense was worse with Wolf off the floor, too.

The other thing Wolf deserves credit for is shining when the lights were brightest. Per BartTorvik, he played his best ball against Top 50 competition, registering an 11.2 BPM in those contests. Additionally, Wolf registered a higher assist rate and lower turnover rate in these games. From this, we can surmise that Wolf is far from a bum-slayer. We can also draw hope that his issues won’t be exacerbated against high-level opposition, as so far, he’s played a more buttoned-up brand of ball against his greatest adversaries.

Conclusion

Reservations about Danny Wolf aren’t unwarranted. He can be turnover prone, he’s a below-the-rim big man, and I’d be stunned if he ever became a high-end defensive anchor. Still, I’d be extremely leery of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. The NBA is leaning back into multiple big lineups, and those require guys who are big, skilled, and comfortable playing alongside another big man.

That’s Danny Wolf. He took on one of the strangest roles we’ve seen a 6’10.5” player take on in college, successfully operating as a pick-and-roll ball-handler. In that role, Wolf posted exceptional assist numbers while self-creating looks for himself in a way few other players his size can. On top of that, he grades out well as a shooter statistically and also put together one of the most diverse beyond-the-arc portfolios we’ve seen from big men. He’s got a pull-up three and he can move into it from deep. Plus, his ability to survive in space defensively paired with the athletic strides he’s made over the past few seasons are encouraging as it pertains to guarding five-out line-ups on the other side of the ball.

There’s a chance I could be wrong. Heck, like I said earlier, I’ve already been wrong about whether Wolf was a 2025 guy. But it’s hard for me to look at Danny Wolf, the role that he played, and the direction the NBA is going in and not see value in what he brings to the table. Double big is in. Five-out is in. Physicality is in. Plus, we know that historically, assist rates and assist-to-turnover ratios have been correlated with success for big men at the NBA level. All of this is too much for me to ignore. For these reasons, I believe in Danny Wolf—a lottery prospect on my board.