Here are the latest news and notes regarding the 2016 NBA Draft, which will be held on June 23rd in Brooklyn, New York:
- The Nuggets have workouts scheduled on Thursday for Josh Adams (Wyoming), Kay Felder (Oakland), Brice Johnson, (North Carolina), Chris Obekpa, (UNLV), Malachi Richardson, (Syracuse) and Guershcon Yabusele (France), the team announced via press release.
- The Suns held a group workout today for Johnson, Richardson, Alpha Kaba (France) and Maodo Lo (Columbia), the team announced in a series of tweets. Working out individually for Phoenix today was Skal Labissiere (Kentucky) and Jakob Poeltl (Utah).
- Kentucky combo guard Jamal Murray said he intends to work out for just four teams: the Celtics, Suns, Timberwolves and Pelicans, Jay King of MassLive tweets. The teams on Murray’s list hold picks No. 3 to No. 6 in June’s draft, King notes.
- The Wolves will bring in Damion Lee (Louisville) and Ryan Arcidiacono (Villanova) as part of a group workout on June 14th, Darren Wolfson of 1500 ESPN notes (Twitter links).
What’s with players thinking they can force a team to pick them?
You should be thankful to even enter the league at this point. You’ve proven nothing, that’s why you have a rookie deal, to show you belong and then you can pick where you want to play.
They are trying to pick where they play because like all athletes at that level they have an ego. Very rarely is a lottery pick okay with coming in and sitting the bench. For example Kris Dunn won’t release his medical records to the Celtics or Suns because he wants to go 5th to the T-Wolves. The Celtics already have an All-Star point guard, and the Suns already have 2 point guards they are paying 10 mil a year to. He like many of the others wants to go somewhere he can actually get playing time. In theory I agree with you they should just be great full to be in the league but you also have to look at it from their point of view, they are trying to put themselves in the best situation to succeed. With the way restricted free agency is set up any good/great player that has an impact on a team won’t get to pick where he plays for 9 years.
Exactly, that’s the big thing. While both of you are right that they haven’t really proven anything and have an ego, they’re also trying to set them up for success. As you mentioned with the Celtics and Suns, Dunn might not want to go there because he might not get any meaningful minutes. As much as professional players want to get paid, they also want to play. CJ McCollum would be a perfect example because he sat behind Lillard and Wes Matthews for a couple of seasons. If Matthews stayed with Portland, McCollum would have never gotten an opportunity like this and when his rookie deal expired he would probably have signed a small contract as a backup guard. Now, McCollum has shown to be an effective #2 option on a team as a starter. While I don’t think Dunn expects to be handed the starting job if he were to go to Minnesota, especially since Rubio is there, he probably sees Minnesota as a better opportunity to get playing time and possibly a starting job, with all the Rubio trade speculation last year, over Boston (who has Thomas, Smart, and Rozier ahead of him) and Phoenix (who has Bledsoe and Knight ahead of him).