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Central Notes: Bird, Pacers, Pistons, Portis

June 12th, 2024 at 9:42pm CST by Arthur Hill

Six players who participated in a pre-draft workout for the Pacers on Wednesday were surprised when a Hall of Famer showed up to watch them, writes Zion Brown of The Indianapolis Star. Larry Bird, who was hired as a consultant last June, walked into the gym to observe the prospects, who noticed his presence immediately.

“It’s exciting,” Oakland’s Jack Gohlke said. “Obviously (he’s) an NBA legend, and a guy who has been with the Pacers organization for forever and a legend with the Celtics, too. So I think it’s just really cool. … I would say it’s almost easier to play in front of a sold-out arena than to have these guys sitting courtside, but it’s still a really cool experience.”

Bird has worked for the Pacers in several capacities over the years, starting as head coach in 1997. Tyrese Haliburton and Isaiah Jackson also made an appearance on Wednesday, but the focus was on Bird, even though the players at the workout were all born well after his playing career ended.

“Once he walked in I was like, ‘I recognize him,’” UC-Santa Barbara’s Ajay Mitchell said. “It’s amazing to see him here. Working in front of him, it’s a great opportunity and it’s a blessing to have him around.”

Also participating in the workout were Yongxi Cui of China, Thijs de Ridder of Belgium, TCU’s Emanuel Miller and Michigan State’s Tyson Walker. Indiana owns picks 36, 49 and 50 in this month’s draft.

There’s more from the Central Division:

  • The Pacers have another workout set for Thursday featuring Baylor’s Jalen Bridges, North Carolina State’s D.J. Burns Jr., West Virginia’s Jesse Edwards, Kentucky’s Antonio Reeves and Morehead State’s Kalil Thomas, the team announced (via Twitter). Indiana’s Xavier Johnson was a late replacement for USC’s Boogie Ellis (Twitter link).
  • New Pistons head of basketball operations Trajan Langdon has a challenge to try to fix an organization that has been sputtering for years, observes Bob Wojnowski of The Detroit News. Wojnowski blames owner Tom Gores, whom he accuses of meddling too often, as well as the people he has entrusted to run the franchise. He criticizes former general manager Troy Weaver for his roster construction, particularly his willingness to take on big men who failed elsewhere, and coach Monty Williams for his insistence on playing Killian Hayes and his misuse of Jaden Ivey early in the season.
  • Bobby Portis should be thrilled by the return of Darvin Ham to the Bucks‘ coaching staff, notes Christopher Kuhagen of The Journal-Sentinel. Kuhagen recalls that after Milwaukee was eliminated from the playoffs in 2023, Portis sent out a social media message that read, “Only thing hurt us was D ham leaving. That ain’t talked about enough.”
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NBA Announces 88 Early Entrants Withdrawing From Draft

July 10th, 2021 at 6:15pm CST by Luke Adams

The NBA issued a press release today announcing that 88 prospects who declared for the 2021 draft as early entrants earlier this year have withdrawn their names from the draft pool.

We’ve passed along updates on most of these players in recent weeks, but the following names on today’s list are ones that we hadn’t written about yet. They’ve pulled out of the 2021 NBA draft and will retain their NCAA eligibility for at least one more year:

  1. Josiah Agnew, G, Denmark Technical College (SC) (freshman)
  2. Dalonte Brown, F, Miami (Ohio) (senior)
  3. D.J. Burns Jr., F, Winthrop (sophomore)
  4. Lydell Elmore, F, High Point (senior)
  5. Patrick Greene Jr., G, National Park College (AR) (sophomore)
  6. Ron Harper Jr., G/F, Rutgers (junior)
  7. Trevor Hudgins, G, NW Missouri State (junior)
  8. David Jean-Baptiste, G, Chattanooga (senior)
  9. Jalen Johnson, F, Mississippi State (senior)
  10. Jaizec Lottie, G, Flagler (FL) (senior)
  11. Loudon Love, F, Wright State (senior)
  12. Issa Muhammad, F, Daytona State (FL) (sophomore)
  13. Jordan Phillips, G/F, UT Arlington (junior)
  14. Antonio Reeves, G, Illinois State (sophomore)
  15. Shawn Royal Jr., G/F, Victory Rock Prep (FL) (post-graduate)
  16. Maleek Taylor, F, Allen University (SC) (senior)
  17. Alonzo Verge Jr., G, Arizona State (senior)
  18. Richard Washington Jr., G/F, San Jose State (senior)
  19. Keith Williams, G, Cincinnati (senior)

Our unofficial list of early entrants is now up to date, to the best of our knowledge. While the NCAA’s early entrant withdrawal deadline came and went this past Wednesday, the NBA’s own deadline is on July 19, so there will still be a number of early entrants removing their names from the draft in the next nine days — especially international prospects, since the NCAA deadline didn’t apply to them at all.

We’ll continue updating our list of early entrants through the NBA’s withdrawal deadline on July 19, and will eventually provide an official list of this year’s draft-eligible early entrants.

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Draft Notes: Surprise Draft Options, Washington Jr., Days, Trapp, Burns, McGusty

June 29th, 2021 at 6:09pm CST by Eli Cohen

The draft never goes exactly according to plan, writes Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Wasserman, so having an idea of some alternative candidates at each spot can be helpful. Wasserman goes through each of the lottery teams and gives one dark-horse candidate for their pick. Some notable outcomes: Jalen Green to the Pistons, the Cavaliers trading down for Scottie Barnes, and Sharife Cooper to the Pacers.

More news from around the NBA Draft:

  • Duane Washington Jr. will be keeping his name in the draft, tweets Jeff Goodman of Stadium. The Ohio State guard had a strong showing at the G League Elite Camp, which he parlayed into an NBA Combine invitation, where he performed well in scrimmages and testing. Sam Vecenie of The Athletic tweets that Washington is viewed as a good two-way contract candidate due to his shooting ability.
  • Forward Darius Days announced his return to LSU today on Jordy Culotta’s radio show. “I love Louisiana, I love the people,” Days said. “It’s going to be a fun ride. This is the last ride with me and Coach (Will) Wade. I’m the last one left with all the guys I came in with and we’re looking for a title.”
  • Former Clemson guard Clyde Trapp has withdrawn from the NBA draft and will transfer to Charlotte for next season, reports Jeff Goodman. The four-year guard put his transfer papers in at the same time he declared for the draft, leaving the doorway open for a return to college hoops.
  • D.J. Burns has also withdrawn his name from the NBA draft, according to Goodman. The sophomore forward helped lead Winthrop to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2017, where they lost to fifth-ranked Villanova.
  • Kameron McGusty will return to Miami, tweets Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports. “I learned a lot while going through the pre-draft process with NBA teams and feel the best decision for me is to return to Miami and continue to hone my skills,” McGusty said in a statement.
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NBA Announces Initial Early Entrant List For 2021 Draft

June 2nd, 2021 at 10:38am CST by Luke Adams

The NBA has officially released the initial list of early entrants for the 2021 NBA draft, announcing in a press release that 353 players have filed as early entry candidates. Of those prospects, 296 are from colleges, while 57 are international early entrants.

That number obliterates the previous record of 236 early entrants, established in 2018. That had been expected, however, since the NCAA gave 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.

Since well over half of the college early entrants are seniors, there are actually fewer college underclassmen than usual in this initial group of early entrants.

This year’s total of 353 early entrants figures to shrink significantly by July 7 and again by July 19, 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 60, the number of picks in the draft.

Our tracker of early entrants for the 2021 draft now includes seniors and is fully up to date. It can be found right here. It doesn’t include players who are automatically draft-eligible this year. As Jonathan Givony of ESPN tweets, that list of auto-eligible players includes the prospects who played for the G League Ignite, such as Jalen Green and Jonathan Kuminga.

Here are the changes we made to our tracker today:

Newly-added players:

College players:

These players hadn’t previously been included on our unofficial list of underclassmen early entrants and weren’t on the list of senior early entrants that the NBA sent to teams last week.

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.

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 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 for the time being.

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