Below The Rim, Episode One: San Diego's Davion Hill

Talent realignment in the NIL era doesn't only affect the game's star prospects. A player suiting up for five teams in five years was unimaginable for most of the game's history; outside of barnstorming in the game's pre-WWII infancy, the search for optimal financial and performance environments was inaccessible, restricted by rules, written or otherwise. Davion Hill's journey is just as intriguing as his playstyle and pro outlook. After a stellar HS career at Neumann Regional in Pennsylvania, capped off with a 2A POY award and a district title in his 2023 senior season, he committed to Missouri State.

This followed a pattern we will see a few times in his story: following in the footsteps of his brother Alize Johnson, selected 50th in the 2018 NBA Draft. In fact, their brother David was on the team for the 2023 season, albeit as a redshirt. The youngest brother followed this patient method and redshirted his 2024 freshman season at MSU, departing from the program without ever playing a game (a coaching change likely factored into the move). Again, like his NBA brother, Hill leaned into the junior college circuit to break out. Instead of the weak Frank Phillips College that Alize attended for two seasons after high school, Davion leveraged his portfolio to land at the illustrious Northwest Florida State College, with an alumni list including Xavier Moon, 2027 Mexico City Capitane Chad Baker-Mazara, Kasean Pryor, Tavion Banks, Jasper Floyd, and more; there are D1 programs with fewer hits than that over the last decade, and Hill landed feet-first, leading the Raiders in points and rebounds per game, as well as Game Score, by a significant margin. Beyond his box score, though, his outlook was still a bit murky. A 6'2 guard who only saw 4.5% of his possessions as a P&R handler and shot 25% on spot-up threes is enough of an anomaly to scare most off. His below-the-rim transition process is just as damning at first glance.

Hill missed 4 of 9 transition dunk attempts, only attempted to dunk 14% of his rim attempts, and even settled for 6 floater attempts (converting only one) across his 73 transition FGA. This makes it more amazing that transition dominance is his superpower: Hill has mastered increasing a team's transition frequency and efficiency while being a mediocre vertical athlete, weaponizing a rare intersection of pace, feel, and processing, with a frame that withstands full-speed collisions and finishes through contact. More than the usual aesthetic of graceful, high-flying hoopers, Hill's style is unshakeably reminiscent of a football player, hunting for creases in the open field, seeking and powering through contact to score. Guess who came up as a two-sport athlete?

He parlayed this success as a redshirt freshman into his 2026 season at Ball State, adding ten pounds to his already outlier functional mass, and continued his ascension. Following a standard, even mediocre, start to his D1 career, Hill turned a corner. From the new year onward, his 5 BPM across eighteen games ranked fourth in the MAC, ahead of Kansas transfer Leroy Blyden Jr., Houston transfer Delrecco Gillespie, Providence transfer Ryan Sabol, NBA Summer League/probable 2027 G League rookies Amani Lyles and Peter Suder, and many other players who seemingly picked up more traction for lesser success, at older ages, and with better teammate help.

His two-way well-roundedness across his final 18 games of the season can be amplified to the maximum, placing him next to the finest talents of the most recent NBA draft class.

Hill's next-highest teammate in Box Plus-Minus was 0.6, which ranked 35th in the conference. For reference, six Miami (OH) players had higher BPMs, benefiting from playing together. BPM differential has grown as a popular prospect datapoint, masterfully delivered by my guy Gavin O'Leary. If a player can succeed without relying on a strong team, the potency of their abilities is likely more 'true'.

Before being noticed by the online evaluation community, Hill ranked 14th in the metric among listed underclassmen, just below the #1 pick in the draft. Of returning players, he ranked seventh. While most of the highest-ranking returners chose to spend another season at their 2026 school, transfers like Jaquan Johnson and DeSean Goode had no issue finding high-major suitors in the portal, ending up at Iowa St. and Miami (FL), respectively. Hill left Ball St. after a pitiful team performance, capped off by head coach Mike Lewis' dismissal. Despite playing on one of the least-efficient teams in modern MAC basketball history, Hill improved his transition superpower.

Remember last season's ugly missed dunks? We didn't even attempt a transition dunk this season; give me the layup or the free throws, sometimes both. Only one floater attempted across 60 FGA; there was no settling. We almost doubled transition assist volume on fewer attempts.

I can't say I've ever seen anything like this, accounting for the circumstances.

Projecting Hill's heights next season at San Diego is akin to determining whether he can claw his way onto the national radar, and I don't see any reason why not. He's proven that even the worst team atmosphere in the nation cannot prevent his strengths from manifesting, and San Diego's roster is projected as middle-of-the-pack in the WCC on Bart and Hoop-Explorer; I'm higher on their talent index based on their transfer classes' 'queryability'.

Whether it be Jevon Hill's hyper-efficient tall shooter season with D2 Central Missouri, Anthony Munoz doing a Ben Simmons impression as a freshman at Grambling State, Jose Roberto Tanchyn's NBA-adjacent rebounding/stock/shooting intersection, Terry McMorris' stock accumulation with plus feel and touch, Sekou Konneh's freshman outline of a future NBA center, or even Dusty Stromer having a cool Instagram reel in high school, JR Blount's first roster as head coach has a high-end case that somehow consists of multiple players touching the NBA eventually, led by our title athlete.

Hill's top-end outcomes would build on his ostensibly basic yet rarefied 2026 season of efficient offensive process and defensive activity. When sifting for NBA-level players, isolating outliers among outliers is my goal, and Hill's Bart profile doesn't have a striking singularity among this cohort. Solid OREB and BLK rates are strong signs for future pro possession-maximizing guards, and his superior rim rate is notable.

One or both of a major shooting accuracy or playmaking volume leap seems mandatory.

His aforementioned non-handler halfcourt playtype distribution will have to change, and if ISU's offensive trends over the last four seasons (when Blount was an assistant) are a general guideline for San Diego's methodology, the leap will come mostly from P&R reps. Perhaps an upgrade in teammate talent will be enough to elevate his assist rates. You may recall he played in one of the most disastrous venues ever for a passer last season, and he picked up on this: in response to P&R rollers finishing at a 13th percentile clip (.882 PPP), Hill and the other handlers simply stopped passing them the ball, resulting in 95th percentile P&R handler frequency and 93rd percentile spot-up frequency. Taking matters into his own hands on a team with a high-usage HC creator like Munoz may not be as necessary, which would allow higher C&S 3PT volume. At NW Florida State, he shot 25% on 51 attempts, improving in 2026, knocking down almost 36% on double the attempts; another 3PT leap would further entrench him among pro-caliber peers.

Even if Hill stagnates in 2027, his skills Below The Rim will help him maintain rarefied status.

Nile!