A pair of players widely considered to be among the five best draft picks for 2015 made their college choices today, with Jahlil Okafor headed to Duke and Cliff Alexander bound for Kansas. Longtime recruiting analyst Tom Konchalski told Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv that if Okafor picked Duke, it might influence top 2014 prospect Jabari Parker to stay an extra year in school so he can play with his AAU teammate. That would be quite a surprise, but there’s plenty of time left before Parker and other potential 2014 early entrants have to decide whether to declare for the draft, so a lot can happen. Here’s the latest on the 2014 class:
- Tuesday’s talent showcase at the Champions Classic was quite a spectacle, but it didn’t help at least one GM draw any conclusions, according to USA Today’s Sam Amick. “To be honest, I think (Tuesday) night muddied the waters even more,” the unnamed GM said.
- Another GM gave Amick his top five prospects: Andrew Wiggins, Parker, Dante Exum, Aaron Gordon and Julius Randle. That’s the same top five that a GM listed for Zagoria, though it’s unclear whether those are different GMs or the same one.
- Gery Woelfel of the Racine Journal Times compares the 2014 draft class to the one that came 20 years before it, opining that Wiggins, Parker and Randle are analogous to Glenn Robinson, Jason Kidd and Grant Hill, the top three picks from 1994 (Twitter link).