Age

19.93

Height

6' 8"

Weight

217

Workload

MIN%

70.2

USG%

18.4

TS%

63.8

Per 70 Possession Stats

PTS

15.0

REB

7.4

AST

3.7

STL

2.1

BLK

1.0

TOV

2.4

Efficiency

RIM FG%

66.4

MID FG%

33.3

3PT FG%

23.5

FT%

83.0

Jump to full report

Report by: Roshan Potluri

Dailyn Swain

Forward | Xavier

Acrobatic, explosive forward with playmaking and defensive versatility

Age

19.93

Height

6' 8"

Weight

217

Per 70 Possession Stats

PTS

15.0

REB

7.4

AST

3.7

STL

2.1

BLK

1.0

Positions Defended

Offensive Role

 

Defensive Role

   

Meet Dailyn Swain

The 6’8″ forward from Columbus, Ohio, was the 94th-ranked player in the 2023 HS RSCI rankings. Swain showcased his talent on the EYBL circuit during his junior and senior years, playing for the All Ohio Red teams. Recruited by Xavier, he had an exceptionally productive freshman season despite a low usage rate (13.2%). This was particularly impressive for someone who would have been a mere 18.94 years old had he declared for the 2024 NBA Draft.

What made Swain’s freshman campaign even more remarkable was his physical transformation. Entering college as a slender 17-year-old at 177 pounds, he managed to bulk up to 205 pounds throughout the season. However, his progress was derailed by a major setback— late in the season, his appendix burst during a game against Georgetown, leading to a severe health scare. As a result, he lost much of the weight he had worked so hard to gain, dropping back into the 170s during his rehab process.

Despite the adversity, Swain’s relentless work ethic and high motor, which had already been evident on the court, carried over to his recovery. He rededicated himself to rebuilding his body, ultimately regaining the lost weight and then some, reaching 217 pounds ahead of his sophomore season. With his enhanced frame, Swain has made substantial strides in his game this season. Knowing this perspective, let’s now explore what makes him such a compelling prospect for the 2025 NBA Draft.

Role Malleable Defender

This season, Xavier’s defense ranks as the 55th-best defense in the country. That’s driven by Dailyn Swain’s exceptional defensive prowess, where they would be equivalent to the 28th-best defense with him on the floor, and equivalent to the 157th defense with him off the court. So how does he do this?

On-Ball Defense

Swain has great size and potentially a very long wingspan, but what makes him shine is the ability to guard down positions with his explosion, moving both laterally and in a straight line with little effort. At the point of attack, his combination of hand-eye coordination, wingspan, and explosion side to side, he can take away a lot of space from opposing ballhandlers to operate with. With the results mainly being positive at the point of attack, Swain does have some deficiencies in staying in front of smaller, bursty guards.

A lot of this has to do with not having the same explosion when he has to simultaneously flip his hips, rotate his trunk, and backtrack to contain the ball handler. While this does raise some concerns about his potential to be a true point-of-attack defender in the NBA, Swain can recover back into plays with his straight-line burst and length which makes him an exceptional lock and trail defender at the next level. He is effective at coming back from behind and targeting blocks and steals even when he is beat on the drive, but the quality of his lock and trail defense has been mitigated due to the composition of Xavier’s defense.

Xavier lacks good rim protection out of its bigs, ranking #337 in BLK% in the country. With Swain’s proclivity to trail, it requires the Xavier bigs to step up on the ballhandler and stay connected to the roller, which leads to some sub-optimal results for Xavier because there is not enough size to impede at the rim (all the bigs on Xavier have a BLK% below 4, Swain has the 3rd highest BLK% on the team). This correlates with the numbers where opposing teams’ rim rate (+3.9%) and rim efficiency (+4.1%) improve when Swain is on the floor, and I believe this aligns mostly with the possessions where Swain is guarding at the point-of-attack.

Swain’s strength gains are impressive, but there is room to grow in that area with his core strength. This would enable him to guard front-court matchups better in isolation by absorbing bumps more effectively. At his current strength, he still does a good job in these matchups by leveraging his coordination and length to end possessions.

Finally, with his screen navigation, he can get caught on screens sometimes but he turns the corner well to get back in the play. With some improvements in technique and becoming better at getting ‘skinny’ in these scenarios, there is real upside as a point-of-attack defender with Swain’s combination of tools.

Off-Ball Defense

Dailyn Swain’s versatility is spotlighted through his off-ball defense. He is a defensive Swiss army knife who plays a multitude of roles that allow Xavier to be one of the better defenses in the country. Whether it’s threatening ball handlers at the nail, backline support as a tagger, or general help defense, Swain is fantastic at leveraging his ground coverage and feel to process rotations.

This shows up in the boxscore too, where he has a 3 BLK% and 3 STL% for his collegiate career. Xavier enables him to play as a roamer, and with that, it does come with some riskier possessions which causes some overhelping, but Swain generally does a good job of leaving himself enough space to rotate back to his initial matchup. This event creation is a product of the havoc he consistently creates, which allows him to end possessions and push the break into high-quality transition opportunities.

A Blur In Space

Transition Offense

Transition is his most frequent offensive play type and it is warranted. Turning defense into offense, Swain can leverage his acceleration tools in the open court and create efficient rim opportunities. The attention he receives in the open court also enables him to open up his playmaking and spray passes to open players. Whether it’s in grab-and-go situations or stealing the ball by being active in passing lanes, the threat of his speed and playmaking are always on display in the open court.

Swain has great feel and generally has the right idea with his passing reads but the deliveries are still a work in progress. For example, he loves moving the ball up even with his passing in transition with full-court outlet passes, but these can often be off-target which largely explains his 21.4% turnover rate in transition. His ability to push in transition drastically improves Xavier’s transition offense:

Half-Court Offense

While his athletic tools are fantastic for the open court, what makes Swain intriguing and a viable slashing threat is how creative he is with his handle. His ability to keep the ball on a string while getting low with his frame and capitalizing on a degree of different pickup points gives him the margins to sustain as a driver. The court shrinks in the half-court, especially with his lack of shooting gravity, but the way he problem-solves with his handle allows him to navigate tighter spaces and consistently get two feet in the paint with his burst.

In spot-up opportunities, defenders tend to sag off of Swain but it increases the space to get downhill where he can often blow by the sagging defender or navigate those tight spaces with his handle. Applying this type of pressure on a defense is important but it’s what Swain does with this pressure. The ball does not stick with Swain, he has this preternatural feel when selecting drive direction, often choosing the direction that will cause the defender to flip his hips in mere seconds. He’s also great at manipulating these directional choices with triple-threat craft-like stutter rips to get his defenders off balance.

His handling and burst parlay well as a pick and roll ballhandler, giving him additional help to get two feet in the paint and problem-solve. This year, Swain has had the highest PNR usage he’s ever had between the Xavier and EYBL samples at a 23.9% frequency. His directional decisions are applied effectively in the same way with screens, manipulating how he rejects or takes the screen, an extremely important element of a pick-and-roll handler with little to no shooting gravity. Defenders will go under the screen, but creating lanes through these directional choices puts a lot of pressure on the defense to adapt quickly.

Dailyn Swain’s handle is functional and creative as a driver, but there are some improvements he can still make. Similar to how it is in transition, Swain’s accuracy as a passer still needs work in the half-court. He makes the right reads but making passes within tight windows and effectively targeting his teammates is still a work in progress. Due to this, he has a high turnover rate on PNRs as well, 22.2%, and I believe this is largely due to not being able to consistently lift into passing deliveries off of a live dribble. This issue bleeds into how he lifts into midrange attempts as well, limiting his windows to create something once he’s got two feet in the paint.

Scoring Question Marks

The biggest question for Swain’s NBA translation lies within his ability to score the ball, but with the growth he’s shown this season, there is a lot to work with.

Even with his size, Swain was often one of the skinniest players on the court dating back to his EYBL days. With the strength gains, the biggest area of improvement for him has been the rim finishing:

One of the factors for this improvement has been Swain’s improved patience and playing off of two feet in the paint.

Before the strength improvements, Swain developed some crucial traits as a finisher by accentuating one of his best athletic traits while mitigating a problematic one. Off of a live dribble and limited space to jump, Swain has his limitations as a leaper and he accommodates that by extending into finishes with his large wingspan. This shows up in his half-court dunk rate, which drops off to 9.3% compared to his 22% in transition. It limits his ability to get easier finishing angles at the rim but he’s developed counters with other athletic traits. Simply put, he’s an acrobat: Swain can extend his hang time off of jumps by manipulating his center of gravity midair which enables him to find funky but effective finishing windows. This lets him consistently finish on the other side of the rim, using the rim to deter shot blockers from getting to the ball. While he has started to implement this into his game, another wrinkle he could add is finishing off the glass with more volume, especially when those finishing windows become minute.

Shooting Analysis

The shooting is potentially the biggest deterrent for Swain’s NBA translation. The volume is low at 0.9 3PA/70 and barely any midrange volume to threaten defense away from the rim. Mechanically, Swain has improved on the fluidity over time but energy transfer is still broken. Off-the-catch, it’s a two-motion jumper – a dip to generate energy and a secondary motion that uses his shooting forearm and elbow to launch the ball. This makes the jumper a slower release. Additionally, his alignment with his shot platform is centered too much which throws off his general elbow alignment. The lower half footwork is good, he lowers his hips and hops into shots to get into rhythm well but squaring his feet needs to become more consistent to improve his alignment.

While the alignment issues are still present in his shooting off-the-dribble, his energy transfer issues are less glaring with the forward momentum he uses and the results are better inside the arc with the reduced distance. Speaking of results, Swain clearly has touch. He’s shot 82.5% from the line on over 126 attempts and shot the ball well on midrange jumpers albeit low volume (40% on 10 midrange jumpers). This is the part of his profile that makes me confident that he will eventually shoot off the catch long-term. His form at the line has no energy breaks, bringing up the ball and shooting in one swift, fluid motion. This gives me hope that the added motion in his 3-point shooting is specifically to accommodate for larger distances, enabling him to shoot with better efficiency as the core and lower half strength improve.

The lack of shooting volume has complicated his rim attempts and that has led to some passivity as a scorer in the half-court. He needs to develop his footwork to make gathering into his floaters/midrange jumpers easier, but growth here would improve his margins as a driver as he would have a real counter to fall back on. On tape, I am encouraged by how quickly he gets into his midrange jumper when he does decide to take them. That counter and the burst to punch gaps will enable him to bust zone coverages successfully.

Off-Ball Processing

Lastly, Dailyn Swain has some issues being passive as a scorer, but an area where that is not the case is when the ball is not in his hands. He’s an aggressive, opportunistic scorer especially off of cuts. He eats up open space well and takes advantage of backdoor cuts well. Swain’s processing shines in these situations, knowing when and how to cut based on how the opposing defense scrambles against the primary action – a strong understanding of rotation.

His off-ball processing also permeates as an offensive rebounder. The motor runs high when crashing the glass, positioning himself effectively to cover ground, high-pointing the ball on rebounds, and still maintaining positioning relative to his current strength and frame. His feel and tools are functionally applied in his career 4.6% offensive rebounding rate.

NBA Translation

Usage/Playstyle Comps: Deni Avdija | Ron Holland | Dyson Daniels

Best NBA Fits (Team Structure + Playstyle): Memphis Grizzlies, Denver Nuggets, OKC Thunder, Indiana Pacers.

Personal Big Board Range (2025 NBA Draft): 7~14

There are concerns with Swain’s general scoring prowess and shooting but I believe he has a safe floor due to the rest of his skillset and touch indicators, especially accounting for how young he is. He will come into the league as one of the higher percentile transition players while being extremely malleable on the defensive end which will earn him playing time. In the half-court, there will be more of an emphasis on his scoring but with his off-ball processing and tendency to keep moving the ball, he can mitigate the lower margins that come with the lack of shooting gravity. This will keep him on the court, and in turn, allow him to experiment as a shooter long-term. Landing on a team with high transition frequency and ample rim protection should give him more of an opportunity to stay on the court. Swain’s touch and age give me more confidence that the shooting can be improved.

As a Swiss army knife forward who can defend in several different roles, he can be a connective forward that improves the dynamic of a team’s transition offense. Any growth as a scorer, whether that is improving certain handling micro-skills or improving as a shooter could lead to more lofty, creator outcomes. For these reasons, I have Swain projected as a lottery pick on my 2025 NBA draft board. I believe his potential for improvement is well-founded, given his margins as an athlete and as a creative handler.

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