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Sion James was a relatively unknown player in the transfer portal last year. However, he found his way to Durham and was a huge impact player for Jon Scheyer and company all year. Here is the Sion James NBA Draft Profile.
Sion James 2025 NBA Draft Profile
College Career
James started out at Tulane where he played 114 games in 4 years. He slowly improved each season with his senior year being his most productive for the Green Wave. He hopped in the transfer portal as a grad transfer and made his way to Durham to help the Duke Blue Devils.
James started 30+ games after initially coming off the bench early in the year. He averaged 8.6 points per game, 4.2 rebounds per game, and 2.9 assists per game. He also shot the ball incredibly well, shooting 42% from deep. James was heavily relied on to be a steady point guard presence for the Blue Devils all season.
Strengths
The first thing anyone says when they see Sion James is that he is a football player. That is not meant as a diss but rather as an admiration of his size. At 6’6 220 pounds with probably 5% body fat, James is built like a middle linebacker/running back. He is also incredibly athletic which led Duke to use him as their primary point of attack defender. James uses his body well to dominate less physical guards.
James was not a great shooter when he got to college. By the end of his grad year at Duke, he had a true shooting percentage well above 65%. Most of that was due to his drastic increase in three-point percentage, up from 28% as a freshman to above 40% at Duke on a higher volume. His ability to knock down open jumpers in Duke’s offense was crucial to team success. He was graded as an excellent spot up shooter per Synergy with an eFG of 70% on catch and shoots.
James is also a great rebounder from the guard position. Duke was full of size and Maluach, Flagg, and Knueppel gobbled up a ton of rebounds but James still snagged 15% of the available rebounds for Duke. He thrives in the corner and dunker spot so he will be a guy that comes down with sneaky rebounds and extends positions with tip outs from those areas.
Sion James has been an unsung hero for Duke all season. 9 points, 7 rebounds, elite defense, and a team high +/- of +22. Pure glue guy pic.twitter.com/IDyKS6MGgK
— duke 2025 champs (@dukebluesamurai) March 30, 2025
Weaknesses
One of the bigger issues for James this year was just staying on the court. He averaged over 3 fouls per 40 minutes which is quite a bit for a point guard. However, using his physicality as his main defensive tool was the culprit. When he gets to the league, he will need to use lateral quickness a bit more to stay on the court.
The other issue for James is his ability to create shots. He graded very poorly shooting just 25% off the bounce per Synergy. James often got to the rim just using his size to move defenders off of him. In the NBA, that will be a bit more difficult. James must come up with a move and a counter in order to create space for himself. His role will change in the NBA as he will be less ball dominant but still he will need a handle to get by defenders on the wing.
Player Comparison
Lu Dort. James should really study Dort as see how he can impact winning. Both games have the ability to score but hang their hats on their defense to create a role on good teams. Dort makes open jumpshots and shuts down other teams best players while also providing a lot of energy. That is Sion James to a T.
NBA Draft Projection
Late 2nd round to undrafted.
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