The NBA draft is still more than three months away but the debate on who will be the first player taken rages on. According to Gery Woelfel of The Journal Times, scouts have told him that if the draft were held today, the first overall selection would either be Kansas center Joel Embiid or Duke forward Jabari Parker. While Embiid and Parker represented the top tier in this poll and Andrew Wiggins, Julius Randle and Dante Exum represented the second tier, the six through ten choices were all over the board according to the article. There is a chance that neither Embiid, if his back proves too problematic, or Parker, if he decides to play one more season as he’s hinted, will even declare for this year’s draft.
More from around the league:
- According to La Opinion de Malaga (translated by Emiliano Carchia of Sportando) Slovenian guard Zoran Dragic is weighing his options in regards to entering the NBA next season. Dragic is averaging 11.4 PPG, 2.7 RPG, and 1.3 APG this season with Unicaja Malaga.
- Bobcats guard Gary Neal was held out of tonight’s game against the Wizards for an “internal team matter”, writes Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer. About the benching, Neal said, “I made a mistake, me and coach talked about it and we’ll move forward from there.” According to Bonnell, head coach Steve Clifford said that this would not affect Neal’s minutes going forward.
- It wasn’t his health that made Chris Duhon break the contract he signed with JuveCaserta of the Italian League, writes Sean Deveney of The Sporting News. The reason, it turns out, is that Duhon’s wife, Andrea, was pregnant with twins, and Duhon decided he needed to remain near her rather than make the trip across the Atlantic. It turned out to be a sound decision, as last week, Andrea Duhon gave birth two months premature. According to Deveney, Duhon still intends to return to basketball, but it is unclear if that will be in the NBA or overseas.