Michigan State big man Xavier Tillman has announced he’ll test the 2020 NBA draft waters, declaring for the draft while retaining his college eligibility. Tillman made it official this afternoon in an Instagram message.
“With the support of my family and coaches, I have decided to test the waters and will enter my name in the 2020 NBA draft,” Tillman wrote. “It is important for me to gather as much information as possible before making this decision. Throughout the process I will be keeping my college eligibility.”
Tillman’s ability to gather information on his draft stock will be more limited than usual, given the way the coronavirus pandemic will interfere with the pre-draft process. However, the junior forward/center looks like a strong candidate to be drafted — he currently ranks 48th on ESPN’s big board.
In 2019/20, Tillman averaged a double-double for the Spartans, with 13.7 PPG and 10.3 RPG in 31 games (32.1 MPG). He also contributed 3.0 APG and an impressive 2.1 BPG.
Tillman becomes the latest addition to our running list of 2020’s early entrants.
An “X” at the start of a word should be pronounced as a “z”. Thus, Xavier is pronounced “ZAVE-yer”. Official english language rules.
Unless you want to pronounce a word by separately saying the word’s first letter, followed by the phonetic sounds that the remaining letters make. Then Xavier becomes ex-AVE-yer. Ebonics.
Or Spanish, HA-vee-AIR.
Tillman seems like a good guy but he is not an nba talent in my opinion. Michigan St was a hard watch this year and he never stood out as other than a pretty good college player
Looks about 41 years old instead of 21 in that picture lol.