If a casual fan knows one thing about Dailyn Swain, it’s this: The kid knows how to score.
Just dial up the highlight reel and take a look. There’s Swain in a Texas Longhorns jersey, bumping defenders off-balance with his hip and scooping the ball out of the reach of outstretched hands. Patiently jab-stepping and pivoting until he can squeeze under a center. Leaning left and juking right and weaving his way to the basket.
Swain averaged 17.3 points in his final college season. It’s easy to attribute those numbers to his draft stock, which rose quietly in the weeks before the Bulls selected him with the No. 15 pick. But Swain believes there’s more to his game than meets the eye in a well-edited mixtape.
Tiago Splitter looks to ‘set the tone’ for young Chicago Bulls by coaching 1st 2 summer league games
“When you learn about players, a lot of it on social media highlights the best part of your game,” Swain said. “This past year maybe highlighted just scoring for me.”
This week marked the first set of practices for the Bulls ahead of summer league, which will begin Friday with a matchup against the Memphis Grizzlies at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.
The practice offered a chance for players such as Swain and No. 4 pick Caleb Wilson to introduce themselves formally — not as people but as players — for the first time. In those preliminary scrimmages, Swain made the first impression that he was hoping to create.
“I was kind of shocked — not shocked — but I just didn’t know he could pass the ball as well as he can,” Wilson said after Monday’s practice. “He’s a really good player.”
Swain is realistic. He knows he’s the second first-round selection the Bulls made this year. He sees the depth chart in front of him. The Bulls will not provide a situation in which he can lean into heavy utilization to rack up huge scoring nights. Sure, Swain will get his chances to break down defenders one-on-one. But the bulk of his work will hinge on his ability to meld his teammates as a glue player.
This development will begin immediately this week. Coach Tiago Splitter plans to utilize Swain in a point guard role throughout summer league, shifting his attention from scoring to facilitating.
“I’m going to be on the ball a lot,” Swain said. “Making the right reads, having my teammates able to trust me with the ball in my hands, making everybody better, hitting guys when they’re open — I think that just builds chemistry and makes everybody want to play harder.”
The Bulls prioritize a wing-heavy lineup. At 6-foot-7, Swain might seem to fit this bill, but the rookie styles himself as more of a “big guard” who can make plays and get to the rim despite his relative size. Swain doesn’t expect to take over the point guard role for veterans Josh Giddey and Tre Jones, but he hopes to relieve some of the ballhandling and creative pressure placed on those primary guards.
Swain understands the hefty workload required to grow into this role. After already improving his 3-point shooting from 15.4% as a freshman to 34.4% as a junior, Swain needs to continue honing both his efficiency and confidence off the catch. On the ball, he knows his handle and ball-screen navigation remain a work in progress.
And the rookie is already emphasizing the importance of switchability on the defensive end of the court. The Bulls are embracing a positionless archetype of play this season, which pushes young players such as Swain to broaden their identity on the court.
“You don’t want to come in and have one skill,” Swain said. “There’s guys who can do that but — if your one skill is shooting, you have to be the best in the world, you know what I mean? If you don’t have that specific skill, you’ve got to work on a little bit of everything. There’s just motivation to come in here and keep working on different things.”
For Swain, that work has been easy, especially with a constant training partner in Wilson. The rookies try not to get in the way of the veterans who complete their individual workouts during the day. Swain and Wilson normally return to the gym by 8 p.m. nightly.
The two enjoy a long workout — and they enjoy each other’s company, cracking jokes and building the camaraderie necessary to spend the lengthy tenure of their rookie contracts together.
“We kind of play a little bit too much,” Swain said with a laugh.
Most nights, Swain and Wilson don’t leave the Advocate Center until after 11. Those hours are time well spent for a pair of rookies eager to grow up quickly in Chicago.
