Mobile Menu
HEADLINES

Camron McDowell

Adou Thiero Staying In NBA Draft; Oweh, Bittle, Others Withdrawing

May 28th, 2025 at 4:00pm CST by Luke Adams

After spending the 2024/25 season at Arkansas, 6’6″ wing Adou Thiero will be keeping his name in the 2025 NBA draft, agent Lucas Newton of Klutch Sports tells Jonathan Givony of ESPN (Twitter link).

While Thiero was technically testing the waters and could have pulled out of the draft to return to school for another year, the wording of his initial announcement strongly indicated that his plan was to go pro. It sounds like he hasn’t received any feedback during the pre-draft process that dissuaded him from taking that route.

Thiero, who spent his first two college seasons at Kentucky, had a breakout year for the Razorbacks as a junior, averaging 15.1 points, 5.8 rebounds, 1.9 assists, and 1.6 steals in 27.5 minutes per game across 27 contests (26 starts). He made just 25.6% of his three-point attempts (11-of-43) and shot 68.6% on free throws, but is considered a potential first-round pick due in large part to his exceptional athleticism and energy.

Theiro was listed as the No. 30 prospect in the latest version of ESPN’s big board for the 2025 draft.

Here are a few more of the latest draft decisions made by early entrants:

  • Kentucky guard Otega Oweh will be removing his name from the draft pool and rejoining the Wildcats for his senior season, agent Wilmer Jackson tells Givony (Twitter link). Oweh, who transferred to Kentucky after two years at Oklahoma, was the team’s leading scorer in 2024/25 with 16.2 points per game and made the All-SEC second team. He was the No. 72 player on ESPN’s big board.
  • Oregon forward/center Nathan Bittle, the No. 79 prospect on ESPN’s board, intends to withdraw from the draft and return to the Ducks for one more year, tweets Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports. Bittle was named to the All-Big Ten third team and the conference’s All-Defensive team this spring after averaging 14.2 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 2.1 blocks per game. He has been with Oregon for four years, but was granted a medical redshirt for the 2023/24 season after being limited to five appearances due to health issues.
  • Wisconsin guard John Blackwell worked out for a few NBA teams during the pre-draft process and got positive feedback, but he has decided to pull out of the draft and head back to school, reports Jon Chepkevich of DraftExpress (Twitter link). Blackwell became a full-time starter for the Badgers as a sophomore last season and put up 15.8 PPG, 5.1 RPG, and 2.2 APG in 37 games.
  • Guard Camron McDowell has withdrawn from the draft, according to agent Curtis Lawrence (Twitter link via Chepkevich). McDowell poured in 27.1 points per game last season playing for Division II school Northwestern Oklahoma State. He’s in the transfer portal and will be returning to a Division I team for his senior year, Chepkevich notes.
Retweet 0 Share 0 Send via email0

NBA Announces Initial Early Entrant List For 2025 Draft

April 29th, 2025 at 10:40am CST by Luke Adams

The NBA has officially released the initial list of early entrants for the 2025 NBA draft, announcing in a press release (Twitter link) that 106 players have filed as early entry candidates. Of those prospects, 73 are from colleges, 30 had been playing for teams internationally, and three were playing non-college ball stateside (in the G League).

While that early entrant total exceeds the number of players who will be selected in this year’s draft (59), it’s down significantly from the figures we’ve seen in recent years. A record 353 early entrants initially declared for the draft in 2021, but that number dropped to 283 in 2022, 242 in 2023, and 201 a year ago.

The NCAA’s NIL policy, which allows college athletes to be paid based on their name, image, and likeness, has been a major factor in that downward trend — fewer prospects feel the need to go pro as soon as possible when they’re earning big money at the college level.

The huge dip this year can also be attributed in large part to the fact that most college seniors are now automatically draft-eligible. In recent years, most fourth-year seniors faced an “early entrant” decision because they were granted an extra year of NCAA eligibility due to COVID-19 and didn’t have the 2020/21 season count toward their typical limit.

This year’s total of 106 early entrants figures to decline significantly by May 28 and again by June 15, the two deadlines for players to withdraw their names from the draft pool. The leftover early entrants will join the college seniors with no remaining eligibility and other automatically eligible players in this year’s draft pool.

Our tracker of early entrants for the 2025 draft is fully up to date and can be found right here.

Here are the changes we made to our tracker today:

Newly added players

College players:

These players either didn’t publicly announce that they were entering the draft or we simply missed it when they did.

International players:

These players weren’t previously mentioned on our list of international early entrants. The country listed here indicates where they last played, not necessarily where they were born.

Players removed

Despite reports or announcements that the players below would declare for the draft, they didn’t show up on the NBA’s official list.

That could mean a number of things — they may have decided against entering the draft; they may have entered the draft, then withdrawn; they may have had no NCAA eligibility remaining, making them automatically draft-eligible; they may have incorrectly filed their paperwork; or the NBA may have accidentally omitted some names.

Because they’re absent from the NBA’s official list, we’ve removed the following names from our own early entrant list.

Note: Some of these players may also be transferring to new schools.

According to ESPN’s Jonathan Givony (Twitter link), two-time national champion Alex Karaban of UConn also initially filed paperwork to test the draft waters, but withdrew from the pool before the NBA put out today’s early entrant list. He’ll return to the Huskies for his senior season.

Retweet 0 Share 0 Send via email0