10:09pm: V.J. Beachem, Nigel Hayes, Peter Jok, Derrick Walton and Chris Boucher, originally alternative invitees, have now made the official NBA combine list, sources tell Shams Charania of The Vertical (via Twitter).
9:19pm: Lonzo Ball won’t be the only top prospect skipping this year’s NBA draft combine. According to Shams Charania of The Vertical (via Twitter), a handful of other standout prospects expected to be top-10 picks won’t participate in the event next week in Chicago.
[RELATED: Lonzo Ball to skip combine]
Jayson Tatum, Malik Monk, Josh Jackson, Lauri Markkanen, Jonathan Isaac, and Dennis Smith Jr. will skip this year’s combine, Charania reports. While none of those players are quite as highly regarded as Ball, most are in the tier right below him — DraftExpress, which has Ball at No. 2 on its big board, ranks those six players between Nos. 3 and 9.
The mass exodus from this year’s combine leaves Markelle Fultz and De’Aaron Fox as the only elite prospects whose status for the event hasn’t been reported. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see either player – particularly Fultz – skip the combine, as more and more players in recent years have passed on attending and haven’t seen their draft stocks suffer as a result.
For a player like Ball, there’s little upside to attending the combine, since he’s already viewed as a near-lock to be a top-two pick. The event has more appeal to prospects whose stocks aren’t as high, since they could potentially move up a few spots on teams’ draft boards if they have a strong week in Chicago.
As Bobby Marks of The Vertical tweets, the league’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement indicates that the NBA and NBPA have agreed to work on a solution to address this issue.
What happened to competing & fighting for everything smh now a day’s everybody want the easy way out.
It’s more about not going through the combine and getting weaknesses exposed leading to a slip in the draft. I’m almost 100 percent sure Ball is far from a bust but if he lands on let’s say the Lakers they don’t have the scoring options for Ball to flourish with. Randle and Ball can work well together, not sure about Ingram and Russell
For certain guys, a good performance at the combine is going to do little to improve their draft stack. And its not like they won’t work out for teams at all. These guys will still do private workouts for certain teams anyway. I mean what incentive is there for the top guys with relatively established draft stocks to participate in the combine when all the measureables and drills can be done in private workouts. The only real “drill” that would be hard to replicate in private workouts would be the 5-on-5 drills, but those should hardly affect draft stock.
Smart move… if you’re a projected lottery pick, there’s no reason to attend a combine.