Zaccharie Risacher and Alexandre Sarr, the projected top two picks in the draft, were among 12 players who received green room invites on Tuesday, Jonathan Givony of ESPN reports.
Donovan Clingan and Stephon Castle of national champion UConn were also extended green room invitations along with Reed Sheppard, Matas Buzelis, Dalton Knecht, Tidjane Salaun, Ron Holland, Cody Williams, Devin Carter and Ja’Kobe Walter.
All of those players are projected lottery picks, according to ESPN’s latest mock draft. The only omissions were Kentucky’s Rob Dillingham and Serbian point guard Nikola Topic.
Dillingham still hasn’t completed all the qualifications to be eligible for the draft. He didn’t undergo athletic testing and shooting drills at the draft combine in Chicago last month due to an ankle injury. He hasn’t been able to attend private workouts with NBA teams for the same reasons but he plans to fulfill those requirements at the Lakers’ practice facility on Friday.
Topic’s status as a lottery pick is in jeopardy due to a partially torn ACL. Topic has until June 16 to decide whether or not he wants to keep his name in the draft pool. Topic will be evaluated in the coming days by NBA team doctors to determine his recovery process.
Both Willingham and Topic could still wind up in the green room, as another 11-12 invites are expected to be sent out starting next week, Givony adds.
The fact that the draft is now a two-day event beginning on June 26 could lead to additional scrutiny over the final players invited to the green room. The league doesn’t want players to be forced to wait around an extra day to hear their names called.
What the heck is a green room
It’s where Marvel movies are made.
It’s where they laugh out loud when I said Joe sent me.
Bronny James to be the first athlete in the green room to go undrafted hahaha
Who cares.
I hadn’t heard that Bronny was invited? Is it a guarantee he gets drafted in the first round?
I guess we’ll know the answer to that question if he is indeed invited to the green room.
My favorite memory is Dwayne Schintzius in the green room. Top five or top 10 in Talent and the guy sat there for several hours by himself till he got drafted late late.
I Can’t remember exactly when but they kept showing his face during the show and bringing up his name as best available for like an hour and a half lol.
Teams were right, the guy flamed out quickly. Great talent didn’t have the mental necessary to succeed in the NBA.
Bronny James will not be in the green room because there is no way that he is in the top 25 players of enough teams, if any, to convince the NBA to invite him. The NBA is not in the business of embarrassing young players or fulfilling the fantasies of LeBron haters.
Why do you use espn projections? They have always been the worst at mock drafts and pre draft anything.
comment of the month
Disagree with the second half of that comment, though if you have data backing it up, I’d be happy to look at it.
Re: the first half, it’s because we need to have some point of reference to give readers a sense of the quality of a prospect and don’t have the resources to scout and rank hundreds of players ourselves.
Citing a handful of different draft experts and outlets makes sense in some situations (e.g. if we’re focusing on one specific prospect and want to show where he ranks on various mocks), but would be messy to do constantly, so relying primarily on a single one makes the most sense.
ESPN is one that dedicates a ton of resources to the scouting process (employing two draft experts in Givony and Woo and actually giving them a travel budget to attend events in person), has team front office/scouting connections, maintains a deep big board, and puts out more draft-related content over the course of the year than most other major sites.
You have to use all your resources. No one gets it all right. If you look at all of them. You can get a feel for the players.
I always do. Then I just search the players I like or don’t know that well. The info is out there. Espn got Disney money
To be clear, ESPN definitely isn’t the only draft resource we read or cite. The Athletic, Bleacher Report, The Ringer, Yahoo, and many others all have good draft content and rankings. ESPN’s ranks are just the ones we default to as a quick reference point.
Jonathan Givony is literally the best at draft things, it used to be Mike Schmitz (also previously employed at espn) but he left for the Blazers.
DraftExpress has been the best at draft
Don’t get why Clingan is moving up. He’s top 10 to me. Cause he is more ready now. But I can see two or three who could be better long term.
Risacher is definitely a player. But he’s yrs away. Sarr can start now. Hawks are fools if they pass on Sarr. Better to trade Capela than the #1 pick imo.
Agree, I’m not sold on Clingan.