French center Mouhammadou Jaiteh will declare for the draft, a source tells Shams Charania of RealGM. The 19-year-old will gauge interest from teams to decide whether or not to pull out early, Charania writes, so it sounds like there’s a decent chance Jaiteh won’t be available come draft night. He’s the 76th-ranked prospect on Jonathan Givony’s list at DraftExpress, but he checks in just 150th with Chad Ford of ESPN.com.
The 6’11” Jaiteh entered his name in the draft pool last season, too, and he reportedly worked out for the Suns and Sixers before he withdrew from draft consideration shortly before the deadline to do so. He isn’t seeing much playing time for JSF Nanterre in France this season, averaging just 5.2 points and 3.9 rebounds in 15.2 minutes per game.
Jaiteh will have until 10 days before the draft to decide whether to withdraw, unlike college prospects, who must do so April 15th, as Givony explained earlier. The extra time will also afford him to work out for more NBA teams, another luxury college players don’t have. Jaiteh won’t become automatically eligible for the draft until 2016.