Dajuan, Dajuan, What is Wrong?

(Long article. Scroll down to bottom for the summary)

During the midst of the 2023 season, KU had a 3-game losing streak and a date at Rupp Arena against a talented Kentucky team. Dajuan Harris was coming off poor showings in his last 2 games, and questions surrounded a team that had no true center in the starting rotation and a pass-first point guard who wasn’t a natural scorer.

Kansas went on to beat Kentucky that game, bolstered by great play from Jalen Wilson, but also a good outing from the rest of its starters, including its point guard Dajuan Harris. From that game forward, KU would play 16 games to close out the season. Harris produced a +3.22 per game value score, indicating that he was worth over 3 points per game to Kansas than a “bubble” level player would be. During this stretch, Harris was playing his best ball, comparable to a junior-year Frank Mason (2016 season) or senior-year Tyshawn Taylor (2012 season). Harris was doing it in different ways than these scoring guards; certainly through defense first, but he was also adding value on offense thanks to both shot-making and assisting.

In fact, during the closing stretch of 2023—KU’s final 10 games, Harris produced offensive value of +1.06 per game. This was third on the team behind Wilson and Gradey Dick over that period. While KU getting bounced in the Round of 32 wasn’t fun, no one can blame the play of Dajuan Harris. He was solid against the Razorbacks on both ends, adding about a point-and-a-half both ways and +3.30 points overall. For the season, Harris contributed +2.06 points per game above bubble. Roughly, based on his play, Harris was worth 2 points a night when compared to an average player on a bubble-team.

The elements for Dajuan Harris having a successful 2024 were all in place. He was coming in as a 5^th-year-in-the-program player (having redshirted), 2-year starter who saw his game improve each season. Always a defense-first, pass-first player, Harris had improved during the back-half of his junior season and started to be a net contributor to the offensive scheme. This development is common, but not guaranteed, among Bill Self program guys. Harris was making the same strides in his game that others had before him. Some of these strides were unique to him, but he was playing better and making a positive mark on a program that has had numerous talented players come through.

Coming in to the 2024 season, Harris was projected to be a +2.50 player on the season, a conservative improvement on his 2023 value scores. Harris was expected to see a slight bump on both offense and defense. It wasn’t that his expectations were too high. If anything, they were somewhat low. By all appearances, Harris had figured things out. His defense had been consistent throughout his career, and now his offense had finally come around. With Hunter Dickinson coming in, his assist numbers would reach career highs. His shooting and scoring would still be there, but he wouldn’t need to do too much.

But through 10 games, this hasn’t been the case. Not only is Harris not performing to his projections, he isn’t performing anywhere near what he is capable of. He is playing worse than in 2023, by a long shot. He is also playing worse than he did in 2022, when he was a role player on the national championship team. But not only that, Harris is worse than he was in 2021 as a red-shirt freshman who rarely shot and got taken advantage of by stronger players.

Looking at Per 100 numbers, that is the value a player adds (in points) to his team over the course of 100 possessions, Harris’s development looks like this:

2021: -5.18

2022: -1.72

2023: +3.46

Players tend to improve as they age through their college careers, although again not everyone develops in this straight-forward of a manner. Some players have drops in value or flat-line after they reach certain points. So, if Harris was merely on pace to produce a similar or slightly worse season than last year, this wouldn’t be out of the ordinary. Even if Harris was noticeably worse, say close to 0.00, it would be disappointing but not unprecedented. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case, either. In fact, Harris is playing the worst basketball of his career at Kansas.

2024: -5.80

Again, this is a per possession number, so it takes into account the fact Harris is playing more than he has in past seasons. On a per possession basis, Harris is worse than a bubble-player by 5.80 points, which is even worse than his value during his freshman season of 2021.

If we look at it from a per-game mark, it looks even worse. At -3.52, Harris is producing the worse per-game mark of any Jayhawk rotation player by over a full point per game (2019 Quentin Grimes -2.40). Harris is also worse than his prior season at over 5.50 points per game. Never has there been such a drop-off, year-over-year. KU has had players unexpectedly decline, Eric Chenowith’s junior year (2000) being one example (he went from a +2.63 player to a +0.59 player), but it has never been this dramatic.

Breaking down Harris’s play so far, we’ll first look at offense, comparing his 2023 and 2024 seasons.

Going through each line, we see that Harris’s efficiency has slipped from 1.11 to 1.03. What makes this worse is that KU hasn’t faced its meaty conference schedule yet. Not only is Harris less efficient, he is less efficient against an easier schedule. Harris is accounting for nearly 2 fewer points per game on offense than he did last year, despite playing more minutes. Harris is shooting worse overall than he did last season (49.5% vs. 45.2%). He is also shooting less, despite the team needing him for more production. In turn, his impact is less this season. Once we adjust for opponent, we see that Harris is 2 points worse (in terms of overall value) on this end that he was last season.

Breaking down into offensive categories on a Per 100 possession basis, we see (2023 vs. 2024):

Not only is Harris’s scoring down, his handling (turnovers/assists) is also down. Only his boarding, or offensive rebounding value, has changed for the better. But in terms of overall value, this increase is negligible.

Defensively, Harris has declined even more.

Harris went from a stingy defender, giving up 9.2 points per 60 possessions to allowing 11.8 per 60. The other important category, possession winners (PW), went from 5.3 to 4.2 per 60. A player needs to win possessions to add value. Harris is getting fewer steals, forcing fewer turnovers, and not rebounding any better while giving up more points to his man. All despite playing an easier schedule when compared to 2023 numbers. This leads to a player who is worse on the defensive end by more than 3 points a game.

His Per 100 numbers on defense, broken down into categories:

Harris went from KU’s best defender in 2023 to its worse in 2024. How? Well, mostly by giving up too many points to his opponent. A stinginess score in the red means he has to add value from generating turnovers (which he hasn’t done well at in 2024) or rebounding (which is marginally better, but as a point guard, not ever going to be the area where he adds defensive value). This is the biggest disappointment in Dajuan’s decline. He was the Big 12 defensive Player of the Year last season. Now, he’s a liability most games.

2023 vs. 2024. Harris is over 5.50 points per game worse in 2024. He is over 9.20 points worse Per 100. He has also gone from a season where he added 3.87 Wins Above Replacement to one where he has lost 0.52 WAR.

Should Harris be benched?

Dajuan is putting up historically-bad numbers in a season which has him playing historically-high minutes. Clearly, something isn’t working with him. But if KU went to the bench, who would replace his minutes? We can’t consider Adams, McCullar, or Dickinson/Braun, players whose minutes are already maximized or aren’t suitable replacements for a guard. Let’s look at KU’s other four guards/wings in terms of player value. Remember, based on the roster, KU needs to have at least 1 of these guys on the court at all times right now. If Juan gets benched, you’ll need 2 of these 4 to play at once.

There’s a bunch of red here. For one, Nicolas Timberlake is playing worse than Harris on a per possession basis. Next, we can look at the play of Jamari McDowell and Elmarko Jackson. Neither has been much better than Harris. McDowell in particular has struggled recently after a hot start. Of these four, only Furphy has produced near bubble-level value and positive WAR.

So, let’s grant that Furphy has been better than Harris. Who else do you go with? Elmarko has had his poor moments. McDowell is very limited on offense, and his defense won’t likely become elite anytime this season. Timberlake is an even worse option. Another consideration is that, when you take Juan out, you need Kevin McCullar to run more point/generate more offense. Sure, you still have Elmarko and maybe part of the solution is giving him the keys from time-to-time. But if he’s been struggling as an off-guard with less pressure, what chance does he have being the guy to get everyone organized and the offense started?

KU’s best chances are still with Harris. He cannot, surely cannot, continue to play as poorly as he has. As a 3-year starter, Harris put up back-to-back seasons that were better than anyone else on the list above. If he could just match the 25% percentile of his play over the past two years, he’ll be much more valuable on the court than more minutes for the other four guards/wings.

Silver Lining

The good news is that Harris will not continue to play as poorly as he has. Yes, it’s been a disappointment. Here are many reasons to consider that his play will tick up.

• He will get exploitable matchups as teams game plan around stopping Hunter/Kevin/K.J. He will get open layups, open 3’s, and other opportunities.
• He will have a few defensive shut-down games to boost his defensive score.
• As schedule gets harder, Harris will play up to his opponent. While he hasn’t done well against KU’s better opponents, he’s still better against KU’s 5 power-conference foes (-2.87 per game) than the 5 lower-tier opponents (-4.17 per game).
• Harris’s score can naturally climb faster given how poor he’s been. Just a few positive games can be enough to change the narrative.
• The team is currently 9-1 despite him playing poorly. Juan hasn’t been responsible for a loss, as the 14-point Marquette loss was the fault of many poor showings.
• Precedence of Tyshawn Taylor in 2011. Taylor was -3.89 per game during 17 conference regular season/tournament play yet still finished the season with a solid NCAA Tournament of +3.35 per game (even his play during the VCU game wasn’t terrible). So other good players have gone through disastrous stretches but still picked things up later on.
• Precedence of Remy Martin in 2022. Harris’s former teammate Martin had a disappointing regular season (-0.05 per game). But in his 9 tournament games (Big 12 + NCAA’s), Martin put up +3.66 per game in value, hitting huge shots in key moments during KU’s National Title run. Again, like Taylor, we see improvement when it matters most.

If Harris can get back to the level of play he had in 2023, his tough start to 2024 won’t matter at all.

Conclusion

Here are the key points. Dajuan’s performance through 10 games this season has been his career worst. Compared to other KU starters, Harris has been worse than any other Jayhawk in 30 years. He has seen decline in his game across all categories, but the primary problems have been with his scoring and defensive coverage. He isn’t scoring enough but is letting his man score too easily.

However, despite his poor play, Harris is a necessary component to this team. His would-be replacements are either worse or wholly unequipped to carry the load as a Big 12 point guard. Not only does he need to play, he needs to play substantial minutes for this team.

The expectation should be that Harris improves and is back to being a positive contributor by season’s end. There is precedent for good Kansas guards figuring it out by NCAA Tourney time. As KU is winning despite his poor play, a solid Dajuan Harris can make this team a true national title contender.