Dalen Terry often credits his aunt, Cassandra Yancy, for instilling within him a love of basketball.
When Terry was growing up, Yancy coached the women’s basketball team at Chandler Gilbert Community College in Chandler, Ariz., a city roughly 25 miles southeast of Terry’s native Phoenix. There, Yancy preached the art of pushing pace to each of her teams — and her young nephew as he developed his sensibilities for the sport.
“Every time I was in a game, she would always tell me to slow down, actually,” Terry said of his aunt after Chicago Bulls practice on Thursday. “Playing up tempo and always being at the defense, having them on their heels, that's just the way I like to play. It's fun that way.”
That trait was plain to see for any observers of Terry’s first NBA preseason, a successful four-game stint in which he averaged 6.5 points, 3.5 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 0.8 steals — a veritable stat-sheet-stuffing given he only played 16 minutes per game.
But what was most encouraging went beyond the numbers. From overzealously fouling Devonte’ Graham on his first (unofficial) NBA possession in the opener, Terry was a blur of lanky limbs and loosely contained energy. He was physical defending their perimeter. He not once hesitated to grab and go on the fastbreak — and one more than one occasion uncorked creative open-court passes to open teammates.
“He’s not afraid,” head coach Billy Donovan aptly said.
Terry, the 18th pick in the 2022 draft, enters the regular season likely outside of the Bulls’ primary 10-man rotation and with questions still surrounding his outside shot. But his hustle and bouncy disposition paint the specter of a player that would run with any unforeseen opportunity that arises.
In that respect, Terry has drawn comparisons to Ayo Dosunmu, who after being selected 38th overall in the 2021 draft and beginning the season at the end of Donovan’s bench, quickly earned his coach’s trust and wound up not only a key rotation cog, but a second-team All-Rookie selection who started 40 games for a playoff team.
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Terry isn’t one to weigh himself with quantitative expectations. But like Dosunmu, he has surrounded himself with the right types of mentors. He looks up to Alex Caruso for one, and said he picks the veteran guard’s brain regularly on how to read opponents actions in real time.
“The way he just comes in every day, he's a hard worker. Scrappy, defensive, and he makes the right plays on offense,” Terry said of Caruso. “Any time I can talk to him off the court about stuff on the court, it's always great.”
Terry also sits down with assistant coach Mo Cheeks, he estimated, for 45 minutes per day after his individual workouts, asking questions about the Hall-of-Fame guard’s playing days and taking pointers on how to make it in the NBA.
Based on light-hearted exchanges shared, the two’s relationship appears off to a strong start.
“I grew up on the Hardwood Classics, so I had questions for him,” Terry said of Cheeks. “When I first got here I asked him where his hair went.”
Even Terry’s first welcome to the NBA moment came within the Bulls’ walls.
“Guarding DeMar,” Terry said. “That's kind of self explanatory. He finds a way for you to foul him every time. Just, 18 feet. Pump-fake, pump-fake. Pivot, pivot. Jumper. It’s like, damn.”
He has already made an impact on his teammates in the process.
“He has a lot of the same learning qualities that Ayo had last year as far as the want-to to get better, the ability to get better, the eagerness to learn,” Caruso said of Terry. “I think he's just excited to play basketball, be in the NBA. That's part of being a good player as a young player and getting better, just realizing and being humble enough to understand that other people have seen more than you, they know more than you... Just constantly trying to expand your game, expand your knowledge.”
True to form, Terry called his preseason a “learning point.” In properly channeling his energy in live situations. In reading the game as the pace and intensity exponentially increases from summer league to preseason to the regular season.
It is just the beginning of the foundation he hopes to build.
“I feel like there's no area that I'm great at,” Terry said, “So I gotta get better at everything. Just keep chipping away and raising my IQ to the NBA level, because college and the NBA is so different. Being a smart player on this court, I know that's gonna keep me here for a long time.”