This season on The Voice Christina Aguilera packed her team with young pop stars who she felt she could relate to as a coach and mentor. Whether or not that strategy will work out for her remains to be seen, but she certainly did choose some promising singers. Dez Duron, who auditioned for the show last season but didn’t get a chair to turn during the blind auditions, is the best of the bunch from Team Xtina. Here’s why:

1. He’s confident without being cocky. Dez is cute. There’s no way around that – many of the young women who tune in for the show just love him because he’s adorable. Like any smart competitor Dez works this as much as he can, flirting with the women in the audience and giving the camera his puppy dog eyes as much as possible. What really impresses me, however, is that this attention doesn’t seem to have gone to his head. He can work the room while he’s performing, but when he’s not singing he’s a regular guy.
2. He’s shown a great deal of growth. From last season to this one Dez Duron has worked hard and it shows. While he still has a bit of a boy-band flavour to him, he’s coming out on the other side of that with a great deal of potential.
3. He takes direction well. Christina has been offering lots of helpful advice to Dez and he’s listened and applied these tips and insight to his performances. Compare his blind audition with his most recent performance and you can see him getting stronger already.
4. He’s fun to watch. I don’t mean that he’s good-looking – we’ve addressed that already. What I mean is that he smiles, he gets into his songs, and he makes his presence known. Dez moves about the stage comfortably without an overkill of swagger.
5. He has loads of potential. We’ve already seen his growth, both between seasons and during this current one. What’s exciting about Dez is that there’s still so much ahead of him. He’s quite young and has his whole career ahead of him, and if he sticks with it he’s got almost unlimited potential in what he can accomplish.

Related: Watch Dez perform Can’t Take My Eyes Off You

Dez Duron is sometimes written off as the “pretty boy” but he really does show depth and potential with each performance. I’m looking forward to hearing him do something a little different, something edgier, just to really see what else he can bring to the table.

More: Find out who we think are the strongest acts on Team Blake and Team Cee Lo!