Murray State guard Ja Morant, who is expected to be among the first players selected, will formally declare for the draft in a press conference today, tweets Shams Charania of The Athletic.
Morant is listed as the number two prospect on Jonathan Givony’s latest “big board” for ESPN. The talented sophomore steadily rose up the draft ranks with a spectacular season that saw him average 24.5 points, 5.7 rebounds and 10.0 assists per night. He followed that by posting the eighth triple-double in NCAA Tournament history with 17 points, 16 assists and 11 rebounds in a victory over Marquette.
The Knicks, Suns and Bulls, who have three of the four worst records in the league, figure to jump on Morant if they land the No. 2 pick. The Cavaliers, who are also in that mix, seem set at point guard with the performance of rookie Collin Sexton.
Poor guy will end up on the Knicks, Knicks will end up with 17 PGs next year.
How exactly do the cavs seem set at pg?! They would take Morant in a heartbeat if they get the pick… Sexton is not a distributor, TOTALLY expendable. Morant is going to be a real star.
Where are the people saying he should be doing four years of school before declaring?
If you are referring to me, I’m right here. I have no problem with him coming out. He is projected to be a top 2 pick. HE is not the type of player that should remain in college. The problem lies with the #65, #72, #86, and #98 prospects that thinks they are ready to go too.
I’m also just wondering if you are willing to admit that 2 years of college didn’t seem to hurt this man’s value to the NBA.
Didn’t hurt. Made a bunch of undeserving knobs a lot of money though. Plus any kid that goes for the draft, it is their choice, not yours.
You mean those same “undeserving knobs” that provided a national platform to showcase his skills? Without the infrastructure set up by these “undeserving knobs” most of these players would be on some playground talking about how good they could be if only they had a chance to be seen.
BTW, I know it’s not my choice, but it shouldn’t necessarily be their choice either. The choice lies completely with the NBA. If the NBA starts requiring one year of college, 2 years of college, 4 years of college, or even a master’s degree to enter the league, then players will have to abide by those rules or hope that some other “undeserving knobs” with all the start up money decide to risk operating a competing league.
You can go to college at any time in your life
In theory you can, but in reality you can’t. Everybody says that, but once you start getting settled in life expenses come. When you are 30, you are not going to be living in a dorm or at home with mom and dad (if you are lucky). When that happens, you have these things called bills which requires this thing called a job which takes up a lot of your time. Yes, it is possible to go to school at 30, but it is a lot harder. I say this as a man that went to school from 27-31. But I was only able to go to school because I lost my job and apartment and had to move back home. Otherwise, I would have never been able to afford to go or had the time to go. I got lucky and was able to turn a negative into a positive, but it was a lot more stressful than it would have been had I chosen to go to school 10 years earlier.
In reality you can’t? I know plenty of people who are in school who are older than 18-21. The average age of community college students is 29.
There are many options available for people to get an education and not live with their parents. There are plenty of people who are the traditional college age and didn’t get support from their parents.
Also, from witnessing how much class time major college athletes miss, they’re not getting that high quality of an education anyway.
I’m definitely willing to admit it helped. That doesn’t mean others shouldn’t have a choice of upping their value in college as adults or choose the draft.
I’m also willing to say two years of college education isn’t really worth much. The fact that he does get national exposure is more a problem of infrastructure. If schools really wanted to be fair they should let players enter the draft and consider returning after the fact. Add another round so teams can choose from a bigger pool if a player decides to return, but the fact schools aren’t letting players return and consider their options is another problem I have with the system.
I am definitely not going to try and argue that the college system is perfect by any means. I realize there are a lot of problems such as the ones you mentioned, but most of those problems stem from rules created because players/agents/coaches/parents tried to cheat the system. The rules did their best to fix the problems, but as is often the case with fixes, they created a few different problems.
The national exposure is HUGE. Kevin Durant is the best example I can come up with. Durant was a highly regarded HS prospect and would have been drafted top 5 had he been allowed to enter the draft. But his going to college for a single year made him a national superstar before he ever took the court in the NBA. You can say he played a year for no pay, I will argue that his single year allow him to get a LOT of endorsement coming into the league that he would not have gotten as a relatively unknown high school player. His superstar status in the NBA have given him a lot more endorsement money, but the money he got after his college year was there whether he became a pro superstar or not.
All of the one and done Kentucky players are still to this day cheered on in Bluegrass country. I say this as a resident just a few miles outside the UK campus. People in bars are always talking about Wall, Cousins, Davis, Bledsoe, Randle, KAT, Booker, Murray, and even the lesser pro names like Skal and Ulis. Players come here one year and can basically write their own ticket for the rest of life in Lexington. I’m sure it is the same in any big college basketball town like Durham, Bloomington, East Lansing, and many others.
Cmon Sexton is not a good PG. If he played football, he would be a RB not a QB.
Just because he’s 6-3, he can’t be a 2G?
Assuming ZW is gone, heck yes they should take Morant; take longish guard Culver if not.
The Mocks usually have Barrett to the Cavs but I no longer support that since he duplicates Sexton at his weak points.
Too early to worry about mocks. The draft order isn’t even set yet.
True, except for the top 3. There’s a good chance ZionW will get picked first & traded, for Morant or Anthony Davis.