Brandon Ashley To Enter Draft
WEDNESDAY, 6:04pm: Ashley will indeed enter this year’s draft, Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com tweets. Ashley told Goodman that he would have declared for last year’s draft if he hadn’t sustained a foot injury.
2:41pm: Ashley took to Twitter to deny that he’s made up his mind (hat tip to Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv). It’s not uncommon for prospects to issue a denial when news leaks before they’re ready to make a formal announcement that they’re draft-bound, though we’ll wait to see what Ashley ultimately does.
MONDAY, 11:37am: Arizona junior power forward Brandon Ashley has decided to enter this year’s draft, sources told Jon Rothstein of CBSSports.com. The 20-year-old is No. 98 on Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress rankings and No. 142 with Chad Ford of ESPN.com, so he’s a long shot to end up hearing his name called on June 25th.
His numbers weren’t overwhelming for the Wildcats, as he put up 12.2 points and 5.2 rebounds in 27.8 minutes per game this season. The 6’8″ Ashley averaged only 0.9 three-point attempts per game, but he made 33.3% of them, and he shot 38.2% from behind the arc during his college career, so he has some floor-stretching capability. Still, he missed his only three-pointer during Arizona’s four NCAA Tournament games this year, and he averaged only 3.0 RPG for the tournament.
Ashley arrived at Arizona as a fairly well-regarded prospect, having ranked No. 15 in the Recruiting Services Consensus Index coming out of high school in 2012, one spot ahead of Gary Harris, last year’s No. 19 overall pick. This season, Ashley played a supporting role to teammates Stanley Johnson and Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, both likely first-round picks. Hollis-Jefferson denied a report that he’s entering the draft, and while Johnson has seemingly yet to make up his mind, it would be a surprise if he returned for another year at school.
Troy Williams To Remain At Indiana
Indiana sophomore forward Troy Williams intends to return to school for his junior season, Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com reports (Twitter link). The 20-year-old helped the Hoosiers to a record of 20-14, and a second round ouster in the NCAA tournament, courtesy of Wichita State.
The second-year swingman is likely to improve his draft stock by returning to Indiana for another season of development. Williams was a projected second round pick if he declared for the 2015 draft. Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.com slots Williams as the No. 46 overall prospect, while Chad Ford of ESPN.com (Insider subscription required) rates him 50th overall.
In 32 appearances for the Hoosiers this season, the 6’7″ Williams logged 13.0 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 2.0 assists in 27.6 minutes per game. Williams’ career averages through two seasons are 10.2 PPG, 5.9 RPG, and 1.5 APG. His career shooting numbers are .529/.286/.716.
Dakari Johnson To Enter NBA Draft
Kentucky sophomore center Dakari Johnson will enter this year’s NBA draft, Josh Newman of SNY.tv reports. The University has a press conference scheduled for tomorrow that “will include UK players who are ready to announce their NBA Draft decisions, as well as head coach John Calipari,” the school has announced. The Wildcats could lose as many as seven players to the NBA next season, including Andrew Harrison and Aaron Harrison, who also reportedly intend to formally announce their decisions to leave Kentucky on Thursday as well.
The seven-footer is currently projected to be a second round pick, though I suspect that Johnson will creep into the first round after his individual pre-draft workouts are complete. Chad Ford of ESPN.com (Insider subscription required) has Johnson ranked as the No. 39 overall prospect, and Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.com has him slotted at No. 40.
Johnson’s numbers weren’t all that eye-popping thanks to the Wildcats’ ridiculous frontcourt depth. In 39 games this season Johnson averaged 6.4 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 0.9 blocks in 16.3 minutes per contest. His career numbers are 5.8 PPG and 4.3 RPG. Johnson’s career NCAA shooting numbers are .537/.000/.559.
Malik Pope To Return To SDSU
San Diego State freshman forward Malik Pope will return to school for his sophomore season, Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com reports (Twitter link). Pope’s play this season helped the Aztecs to achieve a 27-9 record and a trip to the NCAA tournament, where his team fell to National Champion Duke in the third round.
There are varying opinions on the 6’10” Pope as an NBA prospect. Chad Ford of ESPN.com (Insider subscription required) rates the forward as the No. 15 overall prospect, while Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.com has Pope pegged as the No. 43 overall player. The player’s numbers this season weren’t eye-popping, so the decision to remain in school was likely a wise one for the 18-year-old.
In 31 contests for SDSU this season, Pope averaged 5.1 points, 2.7 rebounds, and 0.6 assists in 14.8 minutes per game. His shooting numbers were .455/.408/.675.
Donatas Motiejunas To Miss Rest Of Season
Rockets power forward Donatas Motiejunas will miss the rest of the season and the playoffs with an injured back, reports Sam Amick of USA Today (Twitter link). Motiejunas has been out since March 25th. It’s disappointing news for a team with aspirations of a deep playoff run in spite of having lost Patrick Beverley to a season-ending injury of his own last month. The injury to Motiejunas simply hasn’t improved as the Rockets, who initially believed he’d be back before season’s end, had hoped, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com.
Houston, in spite of the losses of Motiejunas and Beverley, doesn’t have enough injuries to qualify for an extra roster spot via hardship, and with a full 15-man roster, there’s little the Rockets can do to offset their losses, at least from a player movement standpoint. The 7-footer was in the midst of his finest NBA season since he became the 20th overall pick in 2011, having started in 62 of his 71 appearances and averaged career highs of 12.0 points and 5.9 rebounds in 28.7 minutes per game. His absence will put more pressure on Terrence Jones, who’s been starting in his place, and midseason signee Josh Smith to perform.
The injury is also ill-timed for Motiejunas personally, since he’ll become eligible for a rookie scale extension this summer. Jones, too, will be eligible for a rookie scale extension, and Smith will be a free agent, so Houston has some key decisions to make at power forward.
Draft Notes: Harrisons, Labissiere, Allen
Preparations are well underway for this year’s NBA draft, and Thursday should be a landmark day, with Kentucky’s slew of prospects scheduled to formally announce their respective decisions about entering the draft or staying in school. Andrew Harrison and Aaron Harrison have reportedly already made up their minds to turn pro, and there’s more on them amid the latest draft news.
- Just about everyone around the league to whom Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com has spoken believes that both Harrisons will be drafted in the second round (Twitter link). That jibes with the projections for Andrew, but it’s a surprise for Aaron, whom Ford and Givony have well outside their top 60 prospects.
- Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns took over the top spot on 2015 draft boards last week, and now forward center Skal Labissiere, who’s committed to Kentucky, is the new No. 1 in the 2016 mock draft that Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress maintains (Twitter link). An impressive showing at this week’s Nike Hoops Summit helped him vault over small forward Jaylen Brown and combo forward Ben Simmons.
- Dozens of NBA personnel and at least one GM think Grayson Allen would be worthy of a first-round pick this year, as Chad Ford of ESPN.com writes in a chat with readers. The Duke freshman shooting guard has reportedly decided to stay in school, and Ford believes there’s nonetheless incentive for him to remain at Duke, since the ESPN scribe thinks he has a decent chance to be a late lottery pick next year.
Aaron Harrison, Andrew Harrison To Enter Draft
Kentucky sophomores Aaron Harrison and Andrew Harrison will enter this year’s draft, and each twin has decided upon the agency that will represent him, sources tell Shams Charania of RealGM (Twitter link). The news is not surprising, since Kentucky coach John Calipari said Monday that they were among five Wildcats likely to declare, but the father of the Harrisons told Kyle Tucker of The Courier-Journal today that they had yet to come to a decision and that they weren’t really leaning toward turning pro. Andrew stands the better chance of getting drafted, as he’s No. 53 in the rankings that Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress compiles and No. 57 with Chad Ford of ESPN.com. Aaron is 80th on Ford’s list and not within Givony’s top 100.
The more well-regarded Harrison, a combo guard, saw his minutes dip from his freshman season, though that wasn’t unexpected given the unprecedented depth that Kentucky had this year. He averaged 9.3 points and 3.6 assists in 25.5 minutes per game to go along with 38.3% three-point shooting this season. Andrew showed improvement this year in just about every conventional per-36-minute category. Still, his stock has fallen drastically since he entered Kentucky as the No. 5-rated high schooler in the 2013 Recruiting Services Consensus Index.
Aaron was only one spot behind him on that list, so his tumble has been even more profound. A full-time shooting guard, Aaron’s scoring average of 11.0 this season was better than his brother’s, but he made only 31.6% of his three-point shots, off from last season’s 35.6% mark. Still, he, like his twin, was a starter for a Wildcats team that carried an unbeaten record into a national semifinal loss to Wisconsin, as Calipari gave him the nod over freshman Devin Booker, a first-round draft prospect.
Atlantic Notes: Randolph, Brown, Clark
It would make sense for the Nuggets to claim Shavlik Randolph off waivers today from the Celtics, as Marc Stein of ESPN.com points out (Twitter links). Denver is nearly $1.864MM shy of the salary floor, but claiming Randolph’s $1,227,985 minimum salary would close the majority of that gap. The entire amount of Randolph’s salary would count toward Denver’s team salary as far as the floor is concerned, but the Nuggets would only be on the hook for the last prorated bit of actual pay Randolph is to receive this season. The Nuggets would otherwise have to distribute the entire shortfall beneath the salary floor among their existing players. A waiver claim of Randolph would absolve the C’s from paying the remainder of his salary and take his entire cap figure off their books, though the effect would be negligible compared to what such a move would do for Denver.
It’s unclear if the Nuggets indeed plan on making a claim, so while we wait to see how that turns out, here’s more from the Atlantic Division:
- Brett Brown wasn’t fully supportive of the deadline trade that sent out Michael Carter-Williams, writes Sean Deveney of The Sporting News, echoing what Carter-Williams said shortly after the deal. Still, the only tension between the coach and the Sixers front office is minimal, Deveney hears.
- Sixers GM Sam Hinkie signaled to Tom Moore of Calkins Media that he has no plans to make significant free agent signings in the offseason (Twitter link). The team hasn’t signed a player to a contract with a total value of as much as $4.5MM in either of the last two summers, as our free agent trackers from 2013 and 2014 show.
- Nets signee Earl Clark will have a $200K partial guarantee on his minimum salary for next season if he remains under contract through October 26th, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders tweets and shows on his Nets salary page.
Rashad Vaughn Declares For Draft
APRIL 8TH: Vaughn announced today that he is entering the draft with a video message on his YouTube account (hat tip to Zagoria).
MARCH 27TH: 2:29pm: Vaughn took to Twitter to deny that he’s decided to turn pro (hat tip to Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv). Still, it’s common for underclassmen to issue such denials after they’ve made up their minds but before they’ve made a formal announcement, so we’ll wait to see what path Vaughn takes.
1:59pm: UNLV freshman shooting guard Rashad Vaughn is planning to declare for entry into this year’s draft, league sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. Teammate Christian Wood, a sophomore power forward, is seriously considering early entry, too, Wojnarowski also hears. Vaughn is the 56th-ranked prospect in Jonathan Givony’s DraftExpress rankings and 48th in Givony’s mock draft. Chad Ford of ESPN.com ranks him 63rd, though Wojnarowski writes that Vaughn has a chance to become a first-round pick if he performs well in workouts leading up to the draft. Wood is more well-regarded, checking in at No. 23 on Givony’s board and 33rd with Ford.
The 6’5″ Vaughn averaged 17.8 points and 4.8 rebounds in 32.3 minutes per game for the Runnin’ Rebels this season, with 38.3% three-point shooting. The 18-year-old, who turns 19 in August, saw action in 23 games despite missing 10 because of a knee injury, as Wojnarowski notes. Vaughn was a sought-after recruit coming out of high school last year, when he was the 10th-ranked player in the Recruiting Services Consensus Index, a few spots ahead of lottery prospect Justise Winslow, among others.
UNLV finished only 18-15 in spite of the presence of Vaughn and Wood, with the team’s season ending in its conference tournament. Anthony Bennett was the most notable name to come from the school in recent years, and he’s struggled to live up to having been the surprise No. 1 overall draft pick of the Cavaliers in 2013.
Latest On Kings Front Office
Kings owner Vivek Ranadive indeed sees vice president of basketball and franchise operations Vlade Divac as the team’s primary basketball decision-maker instead of GM Pete D’Alessandro, league sources tell Marc Stein of ESPN.com. The team put Divac above D’Alessandro on its organizational chart when it hired its former center in March, though it wasn’t immediately clear whether Divac would be at the controls. D’Alessandro’s future with the club is unclear, as Stein and Grantland’s Zach Lowe (Twitter link) write. Sacramento is looking to hire another front office executive to support Divac whether or not D’Alessandro remains with the Kings, Stein hears.
Former Kings adviser Chris Mullin, who left the team a week ago to coach at St. John’s, his alma mater, was D’Alessandro’s closest ally, according to Stein. Mullin lost influence with Ranadive when he refused to coach the team immediately after the midseason firing of Michael Malone rather than wait until next season, sources tell the ESPN scribe. Mullin and D’Alessandro resisted the hiring of Divac, though D’Alessandro said last month that he and others were pleased to have Divac aboard, as Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee reported then.
Ranadive’s appointment of Divac atop the basketball power structure means the owner has once more hired a top hoops executive after hiring a coach, since George Karl joined the team in February, though Divac has made it clear that he likes Karl, Stein notes. Divac worked in the Lakers scouting department after his retirement in 2005, and he served as president of Serbia’s Partizan Belgrade and as an adviser to Spain’s Real Madrid, as Stein points out. He’s also done Olympic and FIBA administrative work and has a reputation as a unifying force, according to Stein. That jibes with a recent report from The Bee’s Jason Jones that Ranadive has wanted to end the discord that’s marked the front office of late. Ranadive had lost faith in the front office’s plan, Jones tweets.
D’Alessandro came aboard shortly after Ranadive bought the team in 2013. The GM had been former Nuggets GM Masai Ujiri‘s chief aide, and Denver was reportedly leaning toward hiring D’Alessandro for its own GM vacancy in 2013, when Ujiri left to head the Raptors. D’Alessandro’s tenure in charge of Sacramento’s basketball operations was marked by an aggressive posture toward trades, particularly in his first season, when the team acquired Rudy Gay from Ujiri and the Raptors. The Kings under D’Alessandro pushed Gay to opt in for this season and signed him to an extension this past fall, and they gave DeMarcus Cousins a max extension the previous offseason.