Daniel Hamilton Declaring for NBA Draft

David Borges of the New Haven Register has reported that Daniel Hamilton plans on testing the NBA Draft waters. He will declare but not sign with an agent, which means he can return to school if he wishes.

While it may be easy to quickly jump to the conclusion that he "isn't ready," Hamilton has legitimate NBA potential and is a much better pro prospect than a lot of Husky fans are willing to believe. He may only be 78th on the nbadraft.net big board at the moment, but we all know how that can change across the evaluation process.

Hamilton has excellent passing skills and court vision, a decent shooting touch, good rebounding skills and put up great numbers (12.5 ppg, 8.7 rpg, 4.7 apg) as a sophomore for a pretty good UConn team. Combined with his pedigree, those numbers present enough of a case to at least be on the radar of NBA teams picking in the first round.

Ultimately, Hamilton is smart to take advantage of more lenient rules which allow potential draft candidates to truly find out what their value is worth, rather than letting biased parties (coaches, agents, family, etc.) fully advise the decision. Just don't be surprised if he signs with an agent and ends up going pro, because it turns out he's a pretty good basketball player- even if he didn't dominate every minute of every game as a Husky.