There are 14 players attending the NBA draft combine this week despite not having signed with an agent, as Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com details. Getting feedback from NBA teams over the next few days will give those players a good idea of whether they should go pro or return to school for at least one more year — they’ll have until May 24, 10 days after the end of the combine, to make that decision.
Goodman spoke to several NBA executives about those 14 players to get an early idea of whether or not it makes sense for them to keep their names in the draft pool. For the most part, those execs felt that the early entrants could use another year of college seasoning, but they believe Purdue’s Caleb Swanigan is ready to go pro, and were split on SMU’s Semi Ojeleye.
Here are a few more draft-related notes:
- The Knicks will have several members of their front office, including GM Steve Mills, in attendance at the combine in Chicago this week, though many of the top prospects on their board won’t be there, says Ian Begley of ESPN.com. According to Begley, outside of consensus top prospects like Markelle Fultz, Lonzo Ball, and Josh Jackson, the Knicks’ front office has also become fond of guards Malik Monk, De’Aaron Fox, and Frank Ntilikina.
- As Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders explains, the NBA draft combine generally provides a pretty good picture of which players will come off the board on draft day, despite the fact that some top prospects skip the event. A year ago, 70 prospects participated in the combine and 42 of them were selected in June. Within his piece, Kyler also examines a number of potential misconceptions about the draft.
- Chris Haynes of ESPN.com spoke to Texas center Jarrett Allen, who entered the draft after his freshman year, about his decision to leave school, what separates from from other bigs in this year’s draft class, and whether he’s NBA-ready. Allen is expected to be a first-round pick.