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Southeast Notes: Hornets, Hawks, Magic, Wizards

June 6th, 2022 at 7:42pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Hornets hosted a pre-draft workout with six prospects on Monday, the team tweets. That group included Keon Ellis (Alabama), Michael Foster Jr. (G League Ignite), Kellan Grady (Kentucky), Ron Harper Jr. (Rutgers), Brandon Horvath (Utah State) and Žiga Samar (Fuenlabrada/Spain).

We have more from the Southeast Division:

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Draft Notes: Robinson, Scheierman, Daye, Murray, Houstan

May 17th, 2022 at 11:55am CST by Luke Adams

Fresno State center Orlando Robinson intends to remain in the 2022 NBA draft and hire an agent, sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link). The No. 75 prospect on ESPN’s big board, Robinson declared for the draft after averaging 19.4 PPG, 8.4 RPG, and 2.9 APG on .484/.352/.716 shooting in 36 games (33.2 MPG) as a junior. He’s participating in the draft combine in Chicago this week.

Meanwhile, three more prospects have opted to stay in the draft after declaring as early entrants, according to Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports (all Twitter links), who reports that UTSA guard Dhieu Deing, Wake Forest big man Dallas Walton, and UC Irvine forward Collin Welp are going pro.

Deing is coming off of his junior year, while Walton and Welp were seniors in 2021/22 — they won’t take advantage of their extra year of NCAA eligibility that was granted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. None of the three prospects are on ESPN’s top-100 list.

Here are a few more draft-related updates:

  • Having spent the first three years of his college career with South Dakota State, forward Baylor Scheierman has committed to Creighton for 2022/23, but he’ll remain in the draft if he gets a promise that he’ll be selected, per Adam Zagoria of ZagsBlog.com. “Ultimately, I want to stay in the draft obviously,” said Scheierman, the No. 76 prospect on ESPN’s board. “If I can get picked, I’m going to stay in. And then the undrafted waters, I’ll have to talk to my agent and what not.”
  • After declaring for the draft as early entrants, Coastal Carolina guard Antonio Daye and Rider guard Dwight Murray Jr. will withdraw from this year’s draft and return to school, using their final year of college eligibility, according to Rothstein (Twitter links).
  • Iowa’s Kris Murray and Michigan’s Caleb Houstan are among a very small group of players that declined invites for this year’s draft combine, according to ESPN’s Jonathan Givony and Mike Schmitz (Insider link). Givony and Schmitz suggest Murray will likely return to school and say that some NBA teams think Houstan may have a first-round promise.
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NBA Announces Initial Early Entrant List For 2022 Draft

April 27th, 2022 at 10:05am CST by Luke Adams

The NBA has officially released the initial list of early entrants for the 2022 NBA draft, announcing in a press release that 283 players have filed as early entry candidates. Of those prospects, 247 are from colleges, while 36 are international early entrants.

Those are big numbers, but they fall well short of the 353 early entrants who initially declared for the draft a year ago. Beginning in 2021, the NCAA granted players an extra year of eligibility due to the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in seniors having to decide between staying at college for one more season or declaring for the draft as an “early” entrant.

That tweak to the NCAA’s eligibility rules has increased the number of total early entrants due to the influx of seniors into the pool. However, as Jonathan Givony of ESPN observes (via Twitter), the number of college non-seniors (123) on the initial early entry list this year is actually the lowest since 2016, while the number of international prospects (36) is the lowest since 2014.

This year’s total of 283 early entrants figures to shrink significantly by June 1 and again by June 13, the two deadlines for players to withdraw their names from the draft pool. But it still looks like the pool will remain extremely crowded, with the eventual number of early entrants certain to exceed 58, the number of picks in the draft.

Our tracker of early entrants for the 2022 draft is fully up to date and can be found right here.

Here are the changes we made to our tracker today:

Newly-added players:

College players:

These players either didn’t publicly announce that they were entering the draft or we simply missed it when they did.

International players:

These players weren’t previously mentioned on our list of international early entrants. The country listed here indicates where they last played, not necessarily where they were born.

Other notable draft-eligible early entrants:

The NBA sent its teams a list of 33 “also-eligible” names. That list isn’t public, but Jonathan Givony of ESPN (Twitter link) shared some of the most notable players on it, and we’ve added them to our early entrant tracker. They are as follows:

  1. Dominick Barlow, F, Overtime Elite
  2. MarJon Beauchamp, G/F, G League Ignite
  3. Dyson Daniels, G, G League Ignite
  4. Henri Drell, G/F, Windy City Bulls
  5. Michael Foster, F, G League Ignite
  6. Jaden Hardy, G, G League Ignite
  7. Makur Maker, C, Sydney Kings (formerly Howard Bison)
  8. Jean Montero, G, Overtime Elite
  9. Samson Ruzhentsev, G/F, Mega Basket (formerly Florida Gators)
  10. Kai Sotto, C, Adelaide 36ers (formerly G League Ignite)
  11. Zaire Wade, G, Salt Lake City Stars
  12. Kok Yat, F, Overtime Elite
  13. Fanbo Zeng, F, G League Ignite

Players removed:

Despite reports or announcements that the players below would declare for the draft, they didn’t show up on the NBA’s official list.

That could mean a number of things — they may have decided against entering the draft; they may have entered the draft, then withdrawn; they may have had no NCAA eligibility remaining, making them automatically draft-eligible; they may have incorrectly filed their paperwork; or the NBA may have accidentally omitted some names.

In any case, we’ve removed the following names from our early entrant list, at least for the time being.

Finally, Givony reports (via Twitter) that Canadian forward Leonard Miller, from the Fort Erie International Academy has been asked to fill out additional paperwork to finalize his entrance into the draft pool. According to Givony, there’s an expectation that Miller will be added to the list, so we’ve left him listed in our early entrant tracker among the international players.

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