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And-Ones: Borrego, Draft, Crawford

June 16th, 2015 at 10:33pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Walter Pitchford, a center from Nebraska, and Gardner-Webb combo forward Jerome Hill are the two U.S. players who withdrew from the draft in advance of Monday’s deadline to do so, the league announced. The deadline to withdraw while still maintaining college eligibility was more than two months ago, so neither is able to return to NCAA ball. Neither had much chance to be drafted this year, so the outcome of their respective decisions Monday, at least as far as next season is concerned, is likely the same, with either the D-League or overseas play probably in the future for them. Still, both will have the chance to go through the draft process again next year, when they’ll be automatically draft-eligible.

Here’s more from around the league:

Also withdrawing from the draft were Spanish small forward Alberto Abalde and Oriol Pauli, Ukrainian centers Vladislav Korenyuk and Sergiy Zagreba, Lebanese point guard Wael Arakji, Greek shooting guard Eleftherios Bochoridis, Georgian forward Beka Burjanadze, Senegalese center Moussa Diagne, Croatian shooting guard Ognjen Dobric, Spanish shooting guard Marc Garcia, Spanish forward Juan Alberto Hernangomez, Slovenian point guard Aleksej Nikolic and Kazakhstani power forward Alexandr Zhigulin, the league announced in the same press release. Several other overseas prospects also withdrew, according to Monday reports that the league confirmed.
Former University of Washington center Robert Upshaw has been cleared to resume workouts after his heart issue scare, Reid Forgrave of FOXSports.com relays (Twitter link). Upshaw has already worked out for the Mavericks, and will show his wares for the Rockets on Wednesday, Forgrave adds.
Clippers guard Jamal Crawford has hired Wasserman Media Group to represent him, Brad Turner of The Los Angeles Times reports (Twitter link). Crawford was previously with Andy Miller of ASM Sports.
Former Magic interim coach James Borrego is finalizing a deal with the Spurs to join coach Gregg Popovich‘s staff as an assistant, Shams Charania of RealGM reports (via Twitter).
The Hornets held workouts today for Treveon Graham (VCU), Alan Williams (Santa Barbara), Trevor Lacey (NC State), Sir’Dominic Pointer (St. John’s), Shannon Scott (Ohio State), and Seth Tuttle (Northern Iowa), the team announced (Twitter links).

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Draft Notes: Garcia, Pauli, Looney

April 27th, 2015 at 9:59am CST by Chuck Myron

We’re inside of two months to go until the draft, and Sunday represented a key deadline. It was the final day for prospects to formally enter the draft, and a couple of names trickled in early this morning after they apparently made their decisions in the final hours, as we detail amid the latest draft news:

Spanish shooting guard Marc Garcia submitted his name for the draft, his representatives at Octagon Basketball revealed, according to Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress (Twitter link). Givony ranks the 19-year-old as the fifth-best prospect among players from overseas who were born in 1996, while Chad Ford of ESPN.com has Garcia as the 83rd-best prospect overall.
Oriol Pauli, another Octagon client from Spain, has also entered the draft, the agency says, as Givony tweets. Pauli, a 20-year-old small forward, is No. 38 among Givony‘s top international prospects born in 1994, but Ford doesn’t list him in his rankings.
Lottery prospect Kevon Looney has hired both Aaron Goodwin of Goodwin Sports Management and Todd Ramasar of Stealth Sports to represent him, reports Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports (Twitter link). Ford ranks the power forward from UCLA as the 10th-best prospect in this year’s draft and Givony lists him 18th.
The league will likely release its official list of early entrants for the draft in the next day or two, but click here to see all of the players reported to have entered, as well as the top college underclassmen who reportedly won’t be in this year’s draft.