List Of Early Extrants Exceeds Draft Spots
The deadline for NCAA players to withdraw their names after declaring for the draft passed on Wednesday evening. The number of American early-entry candidates that opted to officially leave school and stay in the draft exceeded the 60-player draft that the NBA will conduct next month.
While no official list has been released, we count 63 NCAA early-entry prospects who will be waiting for their name to be called. Our updated list can be found here. The final draft list will be set after the early entrant withdrawal deadline for international and other non-NCAA players passes on June 12.
One of the recent surprises among players remaining in the draft was North Carolina State freshman big man Ted Kapita. He is not listed among the Top 100 draft prospects by DraftExpress.
Among the late withdrawals who were in DraftExpress’ Top 60 included Maryland small forward Justin Jackson (No. 31), Kentucky shooting guard Hamidou Diallo (No. 42) and Texas point guard Andrew Jones (No. 54). (Twitter link).
Other players who made late decisions to remove their names from the draft include USC’s Shaqquan Aaron, Xavier’s Trevon Bluiett, Florida’s John Egbunu, Arkansas’ Daryl Macon, Kansas’ Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, and Stetson’s Divine Myles and Derick Newton.
Draft Notes: Smith Jr., Kapita, Motley
Dennis Smith Jr. is drawing interest from several lottery teams, Adam Zagoria of Zagsblog reports. The Knicks, Sixers, Wolves, and Kings have all reached out to the point guard to set up a workout. Smith is projected to be one of the top point guards taken on June 22 with Draft Express’ Jonathan Givony ranking him as the fourth-best player at the position and seventh-best player overall.
Here’s more on the upcoming draft:
- Ted Kapita will likely sign an agent and remain in the draft, according to Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The big man scored just 4.3 points in 12.6 minutes per game during his lone season at North Carolina State.
- Johnathan Motley has signed an agent and will remain in the draft, John Werner of the Waco Tribune-Herald relays. Givony has Motley as the 40th best prospect in the draft.
- Christian Wilson has withdrawn from the draft, Jon Rothstein of Fan Rag passes along. Wilson did not play at all last season for the University of Texas at San Antonio due to an arrest.
- Jaaron Simmons, who graduated from the University of Ohio, will withdraw from the draft and play for Michigan, Brendan F. Quinn of Mlive.com reports Simmons will attempt to increase his stock with another collegiate season and Quinn notes that turnovers could be an area that the guard will look to improve. Simmons has 4.0 turnovers per contest last season.
- Oregon State’s Stephen Thompson Jr. has withdrawn his name from the draft, according to Danny Moran of The Oregonian. The guard averaged 16.3 points per game as a sophomore last season.
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.