Indiana will be hosting six prospects on Friday for the team’s first pre-draft workout, the Pacers announced in a press release.
The six players are UConn’s Andre Jackson, UCLA’s Jaime Jaquez, Missouri’s Kobe Brown, Creighton’s Arthur Kaluma, North Dakota State’s Grant Nelson, and Liutauras Lelevicius, a Lithuanian prospect who played for Zalgris II this past season.
Jackson (30), Jaquez (32), Brown (43), Kaluma (90), and Nelson (94) all appear on ESPN’s top-100 prospects list, while Lelevicius is unranked. The Pacers control their own lottery pick, two late first-rounders (26th and 29th), and two second-round picks (either 50th or 32nd, plus 55th).
Here’s more from the Central:
- Hiring the right head coach, having a successful draft, and acquiring forward depth in free agency are among the top offseason priorities for the Pistons, according to Mike Curtis of The Detroit News (subscriber link), who thinks the team should pursue Nets restricted free agent Cameron Johnson.
- Pistons center Jalen Duren, who was recently named to the All-Rookie Second Team, was mostly pleased with his debut season, but he’s going to work on his conditioning and consistency in year two, Curtis writes in another subscriber-only story. “Consistency is a huge word,” Duren said. “To be great, you have to be consistent. For me, it’s honestly just being locked in and trying to understand what’s going on. ‘Being where my feet are,’ I like to say, and try to take over games, dominate games and affect games in any way possible. … I feel like that will come. I’m excited about what I can be in this league.”
- Josh Richardson, Kelly Oubre, Max Strus, Gary Trent Jr. and Jalen McDaniels could be the types of wings the Cavaliers choose to go after in free agency with their mid-level exception, Kelsey Russo states in a mailbag for The Athletic. I don’t see Trent falling to that price point, especially since he could just opt in to his $18.8MM player option if he isn’t confident about getting a better payday, but the other four might be attainable (whether or not they’d be a good fit is another story).
The 2023 Draft has some great names entered, more so than usually. I’ll do a list later, but in this article, one name jumped out:
Liutauras Lelevicius
That is great! He probably won’t get drafted, alas, but one can always hope!
Always liked Duren. Not only can he play center. But I think eventually he will also play old school PF. Great pick. Can’t believe my Knucks didn’t take him. He would have helped us deal with Bam ………. I was screaming for us to take him all yr. Now you know why !!!!
The Cavs should avoid Kelly Oubre at all costs. He’s a mediocre defender at best, an inefficient scorer, and he’s an outright negative as a playmaker. I could see him being an effective 6th man, but they already have LeVert for that job.
Strus or McDaniels sounds like a much better fit.
Here are some of my favorite names from the full draft-eligible list, courtesy of Hoops Rumors.
Noah Clowney
Gradey Dick
Alex Fudge
Terquavion Smith
Johni Broome
Jordan Dingle
A.J. Hoggard
Meechie Johnson
Olivier-Maxence Prosper
Jeremy Roach
Tyrese Wineglass
Kaodirichi Akobundu-Ehiogu
Tosan Evbuomwan
Justice Sueing
Boo Buie
RayJ Dennis
Rayquawndis Mitchell
Landers Nolley
Elijah Pepper
Jahvon Quinerly
Qudus Wahab
Liutauras Lelevicius
Mantas Rubstavicius
Ricards Vanags
There are a lot of good names!
I used to be a big fan of the Name of the Year contest, which is sadly defunct, so I’ve taken to looking at the NBA draft names instead. What are your favorite names?