Kam Williams

Cole, Wieskamp Headline G League Draft Pool

Norris Cole and Joe Wieskamp are among 128 players who are eligible for the annual NBA G League draft, which will take place on Saturday at 1 p.m.

Cole, 34, played for Miami, New Orleans and Oklahoma City during his NBA career, which spanned 2011-17. He’s played for a variety of European teams since, most recently JL Bourg in France. He also played for Team USA this summer.

Wieskamp was waived by the Spurs on Monday. Wieskamp, 23, was drafted 41st overall in 2021 by the Spurs and spent most of his rookie season on a two-way contract with the team. He was converted to a rest-of-season standard contract in March, then re-signed with San Antonio in August on a two-year deal that includes a guaranteed $2.175MM salary for 2022/23.

Jared Rhoden, who was waived by both the Trail Blazers and Hawks this preseason, is another prominent name on the list.

Here is the full list of players eligible to be drafted, as provided by a G League press release:

Name (Position, School)

Draft Notes: Bradley, Swanigan, Deadline Decisions

North Carolina center Tony Bradley will hire an agent and remain in the NBA draft, tweets Shams Charania of The Vertical. After helping the Tar Heels capture the national championship, Bradley faces conflicting opinions about his draft status, with DraftExpress placing him 41st on its list of top 100 prospects but ESPN’s Chad Ford projecting him as a first-rounder at No. 22. The 6’10” freshman averaged 6.9 points and 5.1 rebounds during his lone season at North Carolina.

Bradley is among several dominoes that will fall as the deadline for withdrawing from the draft looms tonight. Here’s a roundup of some other prospects:

Here are several players have made a final decision to forgo the draft and head back to school:

Chris Crouse contributed to this post.

Draft Roundup: Bullock, Johnson, Taylor, Williams

May is an important month for draft-eligible players, with the draft combine next weekend in Chicago, the lottery on May 16th and the deadline to withdraw on May 24th.

Several early entries have made their commitments, and Jon Rothstein of FanRag Sports passes along the decisions:

  • Providence forward Rodney Bullock will return to school for his senior season. The Friars’ top scorer and rebounder this season had declared for the draft, but did not hire an agent.
  • Darin Johnson of Cal State Northridge signed with an agent and will stay in the draft. A transfer from Washington, Johnson averaged 13.8 points and 3.7 rebounds during his lone season at Northridge. He did not receive an invitation to the combine and is not projected to be selected on draft night.
  • New Mexico’s Matt Taylor also signed with an agent. The junior guard averaged just averaged 6.5 points and 3.0 rebounds and is not projected as a draft pick.
  • Ohio State’s Kam Williams will return to school for his senior year. The junior guard is shooting 39% from 3-point range as a collegian and was not projected to be drafted.
  • Khadeem Lattin will return to Oklahoma for his senior season. He averaged  8.4 points, 6.3 rebounds and 2.1 blocks last season after being named to the Big 12 All-Defensive team as a sophomore.
  • Central Michigan’s Cecil Williams will return for his senior season. The swingman averaged 8.0 points and 6.0 rebounds last season.
  • Trae Bell-Haynes will return to Vermont next season. He averaged 11.2 points and 3.9 assists last season as the Catamounts won a record 29 games.
  • Tony Farmer, a junior college standout at Lee College, has signed with an agent and will stay in the draft. He is not projected to be selected.

NBA Confirms 182 Early Entrants For 2017 Draft

With the deadline for early entrants to enter the 2017 NBA draft now behind us, the league has officially released the list of this year’s early entry candidates, and it’s a long one. According to the NBA’s announcement, 182 players have declared early for the draft — 137 college players and 45 international prospects. That’s a new record.

As was the case a year ago, NCAA rules changes allow underclassmen to “test the waters” before officially committing to the 2017 NBA draft. NCAA early entrants can withdraw their names any time up until May 24 while maintaining their NCAA eligibility, as long as they haven’t hired agents. That means that prospects testing the waters can take part in the NBA draft combine from May 9-14 – if invited – and they can work out for individual teams in the coming weeks.

International early entrants can also withdraw their names from the draft pool within the next several weeks. The final draft list will be set after the early entrant withdrawal deadline for international and other non-NCAA players passes on June 12.

A year ago, a whopping 162 NCAA and international players declared their intent to enter the draft early, but 91 of those players eventually withdrew. This year should follow a similar pattern, so the group of eligible draftees for 2017 figures to be reduced significantly by June 12.

Listed below are the current early entrants, according to the NBA. Players whose intent to declare wasn’t previously reported on Hoops Rumors are listed in italics.

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