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:
- Purdue’s Caleb Swanigan will work out for the Knicks today before making his final decision, according to Adam Zagoria of Zagsblog. The reigning Big 10 Player of the Year is projected as a second-round selection.
- Kentucky’s Hamidou Diallo will hold a meeting with his advisers today, tweets Jeff Borzello of ESPN.com.
- Borzello’s list of other high-profile players with decisions to make today includes Michigan’s D.J. Wilson and Moritz Wagner, Kansas’ Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, North Carolina State’s Omer Yurtseven, Gonzaga’a Johnathan Williams, Central Florida’s Tacko Fall and Ohio State’s Kam Williams.
Here are several players have made a final decision to forgo the draft and head back to school:
- Deng Adel, Louisville (via Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports)
- Angel Delgado, Seton Hall (via Zagoria)
- Donte Grantham, Clemson (via Rothstein)
- Justin Jackson, Maryland (via Rothstein)
- Braxton Key, Alabama (via ESPN’s Jeff Goodman).
- Markis McDuffie, Wichita State (via Rothstein)
- Victor Sanders, Idaho (via Goodman)
- Thomas Welsh, UCLA (via Goodman)
- Brandon Goodwin, Florida Gulf Coast (via Goodman)
- Vince Edwards, Purdue (via Brian Neubert of Rivals.com)
Chris Crouse contributed to this post.
Central Notes: Pistons, Pacers, Bucks, Workouts
After a disappointing 2016/17 season, the Pistons will be looking this offseason for ways to improve the team’s outlook for next year. However, as Vince Ellis of The Detroit Free Press details, Andre Drummond doesn’t believe a roster overhaul is necessary.
“I don’t think we need to do any changes,” the Pistons center told reporters earlier this week. “We had a lot of bumps in the road last season with different things going on, and it took everybody out of sync. … With this summer coming up, we have to do a better job staying connected — the more stuff we do together, the better our camaraderie will be.”
Even if the Pistons were interested in making major changes to their roster, they would be tricky to pull off. Detroit has nearly $95MM in guaranteed salary on its books for 2017/18 without counting Aron Baynes‘ $6.5MM player option or Kentavious Caldwell-Pope‘s $9.2MM cap hold, so the team won’t have cap room to work with.
Here’s more from around the Central division:
- This week’s draft lottery didn’t include the Pacers, but it might have interesting ramifications for the team, writes Nate Taylor of The Indianapolis Star. Taylor notes that the top three teams in the 2017 NBA draft – the Celtics, Lakers, and Sixers – all made inquiries on Paul George prior to February’s trade deadline and could check in again on the star forward this summer.
- In the wake of his workout this week with the Pacers, Sindarius Thornwell spoke to Nate Taylor, who suggests in a separate piece for The Star that the South Carolina combo guard could be a second-round target for Indiana.
- The Bucks have been busy this week, working out a series of prospects on Thursday and then bringing in several more on Friday. The 12 participants are as follows: Moritz Wagner (Michigan), Moses Kingsley (Arkansas), Andrew White (Syracuse), London Perrantes (Virginia), Bronson Koenig (Wisconsin), J.J. Frazier (Georgia), Tyler Lydon (Syracuse), Ivan Rabb (Cal), Jaylen Adams (St. Bonaventure), V.J. Beachem (Notre Dame), Dillon Brooks (Oregon), and Matt Jones (Duke). Milwaukee has the 17th and 48th overall picks in this year’s draft.
- With Rabb in Milwaukee today for a workout, Gery Woelfel of The Racine Journal Times takes a closer look at the Bucks‘ interest in the Cal big man, which dates back earlier than this year.
Draft Notes: Collins, Comanche, Combine, Jazz
Gonzaga big man Zach Collins is quickly rising up draft boards, tweets Jon Rothstein of Fanrag Sports. The 7’0″ freshman didn’t play a lot this season, but he has become a favorite of NBA scouts. Collins averaged 10.0 points and 5.9 rebounds in just 17.2 minutes per night for the national runners-up. He is ranked 12th in Jonathan Givony’s latest list of the top 100 prospects at DraftExpress and 11th by ESPN’s Chad Ford. Collins is the top-rated center on Ford’s list, while Givony has him one spot behind Jarrett Allen of Texas.
There’s more draft-related news today:
- Sophomore big man Chance Comanche of Arizona has announced via Twitter than he plans to remain in the draft. He averaged 6.3 points and 3.6 rebounds this season and is a long shot to be drafted.
- Cody Taylor of Basketball Insiders examines players who have gone on to NBA success after not receiving invitations to the draft combine. This year’s edition will be held this week in Chicago.
- Kentucky guard Hamidou Diallo may be the best athlete at the combine, an NBA executive tells Rothstein (Twitter link). Diallo is projected to go early in the second round by both Givony and Ford.
- Three Michigan players are headed to the combine, writes James Hawkins of The Detroit News. Moritz Wagner and D.J. Wilson, who entered the draft without hiring agents, both received invitations, along with senior Derrick Walton. Another Wolverines senior, Zak Irvin, also has draft aspirations but wasn’t invited to the combine.
- Wagner will be among six players working out for the Jazz on Sunday, according to a tweet from the team. Joining him will be LSU’s Antonio Blakeney, UCLA’s Aaron Holiday, Florida State’s Xavier Rathan-Mayes, Georgetown’s L.J. Peak and BYU’s Eric Mika.
D.J. Wilson, Moritz Wagner Testing Draft Waters
A pair of Michigan Wolverines, power forward D.J. Wilson and center Moritz Wagner, announced today that they’ll test the 2017 NBA draft waters, entering their names without hiring agents. Both Wilson and Wagner made their announcements on Twitter.
Wilson, a redshirt sophomore, is viewed as a possible first-round pick, ranking 34th on the DraftExpress big board and 31st on ESPN’s list of top prospects. Wilson received significant playing time in 2016/17 for the first time in his college career, and responded by averaging 11.0 PPG, 5.3 RPG, and 1.5 BPG, with a shooting line of .538/.373/.833.
According to ESPN’s Chad Ford, Wilson has “all the tools” necessary to be an effective modern NBA power forward, including an ability to protect the rim and shoot from outside. Ford notes that Wilson’s mediocre rebounding numbers are hurting him a little, but he still projects as a late first-rounder or early second-rounder if he keeps his name in the draft.
As for Wilson’s teammate Wagner, the 6’11” sophomore doesn’t show up at all on DraftExpress’ top 100 list, but Ford is bullish on the 19-year-old’s draft prospects, placing him 25th overall on ESPN’s big board. Ford acknowledges that Wagner’s sophomore year was inconsistent, but notes that he had a huge game against Louisville in the NCAA tournament and “ticks a lot of boxes” for NBA scouts. Wagner averaged 12.1 PPG and 4.2 RPG with a .395 3PT% in his sophomore year.