One thing is inevitable about the NBA draft. There are very few draft picks outside of the top five each year that earn unanimous praise. More often than not, there will always be mixed reactions to certain selections. Some love it, some hate it. That is the nature of the beast. It comes down to whether a team like the Chicago Bulls or others has the conviction and foresight to take somebody that might be an unpopular choice. New VP of Basketball Operations Bryson Graham did that on Tuesday night when he took Texas forward Dailyn Swain with the 15th overall pick.
It was a puzzling choice to some. The Bulls badly needed shooting after spending their 4th overall pick on Caleb Wilson, a ridiculously athletic rim-attacker with an underdeveloped jump shot. Instead, they grabbed Swain, who is essentially the same type of player. Did Graham make a big mistake? CBS Sports analyst Adam Finklestein dropped a surprising nugget on the selection. He has it on good authority that had the Bulls not taken Swain when they did, Oklahoma City Thunder general manager Sam Presti would have.
“Let me first say that Daylon Swain is a polarizing prospect. I mean, if you believe in him, you think he’s got a chance to emerge into one of the best defenders in this class. You love his creation and his rim pressure at his size, and you are hoping that he’s going to get better as both a shooter and with a really high turnover rate.
This is also proof that the Chicago Bulls front office is valuing exactly what we thought, size, length, and athleticism. I personally don’t love this, but what I will tell you is if the Bulls didn’t take Swain here, that it was a very strong possibility that Sam Presti took him with OKC with the Thunder’s next pick. So I’m going to go C+, but generally speaking, it’s a pretty good assumption that Sam Presti’s smarter than I am.”
If Presti wanted Dailyn Swain, that is a huge deal.
Make no mistake. The Thunder GM is the best in the NBA today when it comes to evaluating talent. He has built some of the most stacked rosters the league has seen in the past 20 years. His first iteration in the early 2010s included Kevin Durant, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, and Serge Ibaka. All of them became All-Stars. Three of them became league MVPs, and two are surefire future Hall of Famers. More recently, he’s assembled a roster that includes Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (MVP), Chet Holmgren (All-Star), Jalen Williams (All-Star), and Luguentz Dort (All-Defensive team). It took home the NBA championship in 2024-2025.
So yeah, Presti has the sharpest eye for talent in this league. If he wanted Dailyn Swain, there was a pretty good reason. It seems the Bulls, who also liked him, got the sense that Oklahoma City was lurking. Rather than risk moving around, they just stayed put and made the pick. The fact that the Thunder traded up from #17 to #16 right after that to make sure they got Bennett Stirtz was a good sign that they didn’t want to risk missing out on any more players they wanted.
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Graham already understands an important NBA lesson.
There are two of them. Don’t make trade deals with Sam Presti, and if he’s paying attention to certain prospects, you should probably be doing the same. Does this guarantee Dailyn Swain is a future superstar? Of course not. Even Presti doesn’t hit on every pick, but his track record is stronger than most. If nothing else, it justifies the Bulls’ decision. Everybody kept saying that the young forward was probably going somewhere in the 20s range. Well, based on this information, that assumption was wrong.
Judging by the reactions from Thunder Twitter (X), they would’ve been happy with Swain at the 12th overall pick, let alone the 17th. He represents the type of player they’ve had tons of success drafting: big, versatile, good ball-handling, and aggressive at the rim. It is what turned them into champions. Now the Bulls are following the same formula. It is so exciting to seemingly have an adult in the room with that front office again. This team already looks way more fun.
