Much of the news about the Nets selection of Dariq Whitehead had to do with the risk of taking an 18-year-old with two foot surgeries or how he’s the youngest draft pick in franchise history at 18 years, 327 days old. There was also discussion of how in mock drafts from a year ago, Whitehead was seen as a top 5 pick, not the 22nd where he was eventually taken.
But there’s another aspect of the 6’7” wing coming to Brooklyn. The native of Newark’s West Side is also coming home after five years down south, first to Montverde Academy in Florida, the powerhouse high school that produced Ben Simmons and D’Angelo Russell, then college powerhouse Duke University in North Carolina.