Two notable prospects have withdrawn from this week’s NBA draft combine, according to reports. Jonathan Givony of ESPN.com tweets that Mitchell Robinson won’t participate in the event, while Adam Zagoria of ZagsBlog.com tweets that Boise State’s Chandler Hutchison has also withdrawn. In each case, it’s not clear if the player has received a promise from a team or if there’s another reason for his decision.
While NBA evaluators have four years of film on Hutchison to watch, Robinson remains one of the mystery men of this year’s draft class. Due to eligibility issues, he didn’t play a single minute of college basketball, so his draft stock remains cloudy.
Let’s round up a few more draft-related news items and notes…
- Purdue guard Carsen Edwards was spotted at the combine, so it appears he received a last-minute invite due to the late withdrawals, tweets Givony.
- Following the official NBA combine this week, another event called the Pro Basketball Combine will take place next week. The Pro Basketball Combine released its full list of participants today, with Deng Adel, Maverick Rowan, and LiAngelo Ball among the names on that list.
- A handful of early entrants have withdrawn – or will withdraw – from the draft to return to school next season, according to Jeff Goodman of ESPN (Twitter link). Those players include Malik Hines (UMass), Kalob Ledoux (McNeese State), Malik Martin (South Florida) and Zane Martin (Towson), with Ledoux and Malik Martin expected to transfer.
- A ton of meetings will take place at the combine this week, so it’s likely not worth reading too much into each one, but here are a few early updates: The Pistons are meeting with Kansas guard Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk (Twitter link via Vince Ellis of The Detroit Press), the Bucks are interviewing Texas Tech’s Zhaire Smith (Twitter link via Gery Woelfel of The Racine Journal Times), the Timberwolves are interviewing Anfernee Simons (Twitter link via Darren Wolfson of 5 Eyewitness News), and the Knicks are meeting with Trae Young (link via Stefan Bondy of The New York Daily News).
If you skip the draft combine, there is one of two reasons. 1) You are confident enough in your stock that you don’t need to waste your time. 2) You are scared to death of being exposed against elite competition. With Robinson not playing college ball at all and Hutchison playing at a less than stellar school in Boise State, I think #2 could apply to both players.
Bucks need to move up and get one of those bigs. Trade Bledsoe or brogdon(I love him but value is value) and Henson for a top 7-8 pick to draft Jackson, carter or bamba.
Young’s stock has been falling since mid-season. I don’t think he’s a top 10 pick (on the merits), but the draft thins out around 10-ish so he might be fool’s gold for someone.
I agree that Milwaukee needs to get rid of Bledsoe, I too like Brogdon… but trading Bledsoe & whatever it takes (not K-Mid or Giannis) to get a big should be a priority, maybe they can try to fleece Chicago or Cleveland, that would be good, Milwaukee contending again