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Duke freshman Dariq Whitehead declares for 2023 NBA Draft

Barkley-Truaxby:Barkley Truax•03/29/23•

BarkleyTruax

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(Photo by Isaiah Vazquez/Getty Images)

Duke freshman forward Dariq Whitehead has declared for the 2023 NBA Draft, according to a statement released on Twitter.

Whitehead played in 28 games for the Blue Devils this season, starting in seven of them. He averaged 20.7 minutes per game on the floor for Jon Scheyer’s squad where he averaged 8.4 points and 2.4 rebounds per game and shot 40.7 percent from three.

Whitehead is expected to be a mid-to-late first-round draft choice this season. Many mock drafts are slating him outside of the lottery, but not ever past the first round. The former Duke standout, whose freshman season was riddled with injuries that could have affected his play, is slated to go No. 18 overall to the New York Knicks in Bleacher Report’s latest mock draft, via NBA.com.

The 6-foot-7 freshman out of Newark, NJ was a former was the No. 2 overall recruit in the 2022 recruiting class, per the On3 Industry Rankings, which is a proprietary algorithm that compiles ratings and rankings from all four primary recruiting media services.

He was only ranked behind his now-former Blue Devils teammate Derick Lively, and played his high school hoops at Montverde Academy.

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More on the 2023 NBA Draft

The 2023 NBA Draft is set to take place on Thursday, June 22, 2023, in Brooklyn at Barclays Center. Round 1 of the draft will be announced by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, while Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum is expected to handle the second round of picks.

To be eligible for the NBA Draft, players must be at least 19 years in age during the calendar year that the draft is held and at least one NBA season from their high school graduation date, or the date that would have been if they are not graduated. It is not required that player spend that one year playing college basketball, though. Players can play in either college, abroad, or the G League Ignite if they choose so.

While this is a significant change from what the rules once were, players are eligible to enter their names into the NBA Draft pool and explore their options by hiring an agent to go through the process, while still keeping their college eligibility. The deadline to make that move is on April 23 beginning at 11:59 p.m. ET. Players have until June 12 at 5 p.m. ET to withdraw their name from the pool and return to college.

The NBA Draft Lottery will be held on May 16, which is also the start of the NBA Conference Finals.