I'm glad Bacot is returning, it gives me another year to use one of my favorite separate-at-birth pics:
bacot.jpg
I'm glad Bacot is returning, it gives me another year to use one of my favorite separate-at-birth pics:
bacot.jpg
Yeah, I wish Bacot would leave. He's not glamorous but he's a hard working, rebounding guy who has done well against Duke.
Chad Ford has put together the best consolidated resource of who's in and out of the draft that I've found yet. Only four of his projected first round picks have not explicitly declared yet: Franz Wagner, Corey Kispert, Greg Brown, and Jared Butler. If any of those four return, their respective team would rocket up the preseason rankings. If Butler returns and gives Baylor some continuity, that would help them live up to their lofty preseason rankings given what they're losing off of the national title team. Same for Kispert and Gonzaga. If Wagner returns to Michigan, the Wolverines would have a legit argument for Preseason #1. If Brown returns to Texas they'd be a legit Top 10 team in Chris Beard's first year.
Will be interesting to keep an eye on these four situations... the momentum of draft decisions has died off for a while now, and I believe on each of those four teams other players have already made their intentions known. Does that mean any/all of these guys are seriously considering a return to school? Who knows...
Scott Rich on the front page
Trinity BS 2012; University of Michigan PhD 2018
Duke Chronicle, Sports Online Editor: 2010-2012
K-Ville Blue Tenting 2009-2012
Unofficial Brian Zoubek Biographer
If you have questions about Michigan Basketball/Football, I'm your man!
Guess I jinxed myself, but it was expected: Wagner has gone pro.
Scott Rich on the front page
Trinity BS 2012; University of Michigan PhD 2018
Duke Chronicle, Sports Online Editor: 2010-2012
K-Ville Blue Tenting 2009-2012
Unofficial Brian Zoubek Biographer
If you have questions about Michigan Basketball/Football, I'm your man!
In Sam Vecenie's latest mock, posted today on the Athletic, he has the same top 5 as he has for some time, and that is generally agreed upon. He has Matt Hurt going mid-second round to the Spurs, and DJ Steward going undrafted.
Going to be fun going through these for the next few years, but here is the full early entry list:
https://pr.nba.com/wp-content/upload...tes-6-1-21.pdf
Trey Murphy III (UVa) has received an NBA Draft Combine invitation.
The NBA Draft Combine takes place June 21-27 in Chicago.
This sign points heavily to Murphy III remaining in the 2021 NBA Draft to me.
If Murphy III stays in the 2021 NBA Draft, in the 2021-2022 season, UVa will attempt to win their 6th ACC regular season championship in the past 9 seasons and their 3rd ACC Tournament championship since 2014 while losing 54.1/68.2 ppg (79.3%) of the team’s scoring from the 2020-2021 season, including the top 3 scorers:
Sam Hauser - 16.0 ppg
Jay Huff - 13.0 ppg
Trey Murphy III - 11.3 ppg
Tomas Woldetensae - 4.4 ppg
Casey Morsell - 4.4 ppg
Justin McKoy - 3.5 ppg
Jabri Abdur-Rahim - 0.9 ppg
Austin Kalstra - 0.6 ppg
Last edited by CameronDuke; 06-09-2021 at 05:15 PM.
NBA teams vote on who gets an invitation to the NBA combine and it will be interesting to see if DJ gets an invite. I expect Hurt will, for sure. DJ may instead get an invite to the G-League showcase, which is right before the NBA combine. The best players from the G-League event will also be asked to stick around and perform at the NBA combine.
I would expect Hurt to get a combine invite. Jalen Johnson will too but I would imagine Johnson will turn it down or only agree to show up and be measured. Typically, first round locks don't play at the combine for fear of hurting their stock.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
While you're right that this is common for the top picks, I think Johnson would be making a big mistake by turning down the opportunity to play. This is a guy who not only has major questions to answer about his game -- which to most observers was less (or much less) than it was expected to be at Duke -- but even more significantly about his character and commitment, given his quitting on Duke mid-season following his back-and-forth high school career. Were he to take the "I don't have anything to prove, so I'm not playing at the combine" option, there would likely be many teams who would drop him further down their board than he's already fallen. And probably deservedly so.
He will almost certainly try to do that in individual workouts for teams and especially in interviews with GMs and scouts. But there is almost no chance he will play at the combine. He may get measured and even do some of the athletic drills, but he ain't playing. No potential lottery pick plays at the combine. If his agent tells him to play then he needs to get a new agent.
-Jason "Jalen ain't falling lower than maybe 20... his athletic gifts are just too much for the NBA to let him drop. Even if there are attitude question marks, he ain't slipping outside of the top 20" Evans
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
I thought the NBA teams only voted on who got invited to the pre-combine. I remember Javin Delaurier was in that group a couple years ago, but Marques Bolden was not. I could be wrong though.
I also remember reading that many NBA teams intentionally did not vote in players they liked and were planning to draft or sign as UFA's, because they felt like they had identified a sleeper and didn't want other teams to discover them too. Kind of a weird system they have.
Last edited by UrinalCake; 06-10-2021 at 01:54 PM.