Dante Exum Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Draft Rumors: Minimum Age, Exum, Saric

March 12th, 2014 at 2:00pm CST by Chuck Myron

The NBA’s minimum age won’t change in time for this year’s draft, but if it did, Chad Ford of ESPN.com, writing in an Insider-only piece, thinks Marcus Smart would be the No. 1 overall pick, followed by Doug McDermott, Rodney Hood, Nik Stauskas and Gary Harris. It illustrates how reliant the league has become on freshman talent, and how profoundly a rule change could devastate the draft the year it takes effect. There’s more on the minimum-age front and other news from Ford amid the latest on the draft:

Commissioner Adam Silver says he’s sought the input of NCAA president Mark Emmert on the effort to raise the NBA’s minimum age, tweets Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe. Silver also wants to discuss the way the draft affects players’ NCAA eligibility, as Michael McCann of SI.com notes via Twitter.
Ford doesn’t believe teams are too concerned about the notion that Dante Exum would try to force his way to the Lakers, as Ford writes in his latest chat with readers.
Dario Saric has hurt his draft stock with hints that he might stay in Europe, according to Ford, who suggests in his chat that teams might worry that Saric will become the next Nikola Mirotic. The Bulls have waited while Mirotic has remained overseas for the past three years, meaning he’s no longer subject to the rookie scale and can demand higher salaries to join the team this summer.
Most of the NBA prospects on Kentucky’s roster, including brothers Aaron and Andrew Harrison, want to enter the draft this year, Ford writes, adding that Julius Randle is nonetheless the only lock to declare.

Draft Notes: Wiggins, Embiid, Cuban

March 8th, 2014 at 11:27am CST by Cray Allred

One NBA GM tells Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv that uncertainty about entering the draft recently expressed by Jabari Parker, along with similar sentiments from Joel Embiid earlier this year, are par for the course. He says the high profile players will all say they are considering staying in college until after the NCAA season, when they will all declare for the draft (Twitter links). Here are more rumors surrounding the draft:

Mark Heisler of The Orange County Register says that not one NBA source he’s talked to likes Andrew Wiggins as a sure-fire blue chip player. Heisler says NBA personnel people are now only in agreement on Embiid as a top-level prospect.
Still, an anonymous Eastern Conference scout tells Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders that the 2014 draft class is much better than last year’s, and should be important for the league. The scout also gives his take on Wiggins, Parker, Embiid, Dante Exum, Julius Randle, Marcus Smart, and Noah Vonleh.
Adi Joseph of USA Today looks at the draft stocks of Andrew Harrison, Rodney Hood, and Bryce Cotton.
Mavs owner Mark Cuban told reporters, including Dwain Price of The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, that he wishes there were additional rounds in the NBA draft. “I’d like to see four rounds so you can draft guys overseas, get more guys drafted that are your property so you can try to develop them,” Cuban said. “You’ve got to realize that toward the bottom of the second round there are teams that pick for financial reasons, and that takes advantage of guys that might have otherwise been picked.”

Draft Notes: Embiid, Wiggins, Parker

March 5th, 2014 at 5:29pm CST by Chuck Myron

Commissioner Adam Silver’s desire to raise the minimum draft age by another year has fueled plenty of talk about the most effective way to develop NBA prospects. Tom Ziller of SB Nation takes a look at Mavs owner Mark Cuban’s recent assertion that the D-League should supplant the NCAA. College basketball isn’t going away, as Cuban suggests it should, but Ziller thinks a higher minimum age could result in greater use of the D-League as a conduit to the draft. In the meantime, here’s the latest from a landscape still dominated by one-and-done collegians:

Joel Embiid, Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker are Nos. 1, 2 and 3 in Jonathan Givony’s updated mock draft and top-100 prospects list at DraftExpress. Givony has Jahlil Okafor atop his new 2015 mock draft.
Chad Ford of ESPN.com agrees with Givony through the first two picks for this year, but Ford has Dante Exum going No. 3 to the Magic in his Insider-only mock draft.
Ford and Givony place Arizona shooting guard Nick Johnson 54th and 60th, respectively, in their prospect rankings for this year, but sources tell Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com that the junior is leaning toward entering the draft (Insider link).

Draft Notes: Pittman, Melvin, Exum

March 4th, 2014 at 8:36pm CST by Ryan Raroque

Here are a few draft-related links worth passing along tonight:

Recent Marshall basketball standout Elijah Pittman has entered the NBDL player pool, according to Gino Pilato of DLeagueDigest.com. Pilato adds that the 6’9 forward is eligible for the 2014 NBA Draft and will look for an opportunity to impress NBA executives via a stint in the D-League.
Former DePaul star Cleveland Melvin has been claimed from the NBDL player pool by the BayHawks, which serves as the Knicks’ D-League affiliate (Keith Schlosser of Ridiculous Upside reports). Like Pittman, Melvin will also be eligible for the 2014 NBA Draft.
ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla offered his thoughts on Dante Exum during a recent interview with John Ireland of ESPN 710 and surely turned a few heads (hat tip to Jabari Davis of Basketball Insiders): “He reminds me of a young, 1982 circa North Carolina Michael Jordan…He’s not going to be as great, obviously, unless I’m wrong… but he kind of reminds you of a young colt that’s just about to run his first claimer race, and you’re looking at him (thinking), ‘This guy could win the Kentucky Derby someday.”
More from Fraschilla on Exum: “He’s got great basketball instincts…He’ll drive in, and when you think he’s going to use his right hand, he’ll switch to the left hand at the last minute. He’ll take off about a half step earlier than you think he should, but then he’ll hang in the air and bank it off the glass…Getting your own shot in the league is a skill…If I had to pick today, it would be in some order of Joel Embiid, Jabari Parker and (Exum).”
On ESPN’s Mike and Mike Show, the unquestionably outspoken Charles Barkley offered his solution to the issue of tanking: give every lottery team one ping pong ball instead of rewarding teams with the worst record (hat tip to Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv).

Deveney’s Latest On The Draft: Exum, Austin

February 26th, 2014 at 9:46pm CST by Cray Allred

We’re just a few weeks away from March Madness, when a handful of college players will have a chance to make their mark in front of a national audience, and could even increase their draft stock with an impressive tournament run. Sean Deveney of Sporting News has some interesting things to report surrounding this year’s draft class in his latest article. Here are some highlights:

Some front office executives around the league are worried that Dante Exum will try to force his way onto the Lakers, per Deveney. “When you hear some of what he says, it does make you wonder how the process is going to go as far as workouts and that sort of thing,” one anonymous GM said. “We have seen this story before, of course. I am not sure a player can have that kind of control, though.” The Australian point guard, ranked fourth overall on Chad Ford’s big board, could refuse to work out for teams he wants to avoid, or even threaten to remain in Australia if drafted by a team other than Los Angeles. Of course, if the Lakers land a high enough pick in the draft, they might have an open path to Exum anyway.
In the same piece, Deveney quotes Celtics GM Danny Ainge from a local radio appearance. Ainge thinks that the 2014 draft class has been overrated, considering the mediocre performances from some of the hyped lottery prospects during the college season. “Yes, from the very beginning,” Ainge said. “It’s just all hype. It’s a bunch of young kids out playing in AAU basketball and high school and making all sorts of assessments and then they watch them play on the real stages and they’re not quite as good. College is a big jump from high school and I think reality has hit.”
A scout tells Deveney that Baylor’s Isaiah Austin made a mistake in not entering last year’s draft, and believes the potential first-rounder has likely fallen into the second round: “I could still see him going in the first round somewhere, based on his size and potential. But he does not get the ball enough, he does not hit the post enough, he is not assertive enough. More likely, he will be a second-rounder.”

Draft Rumors: Embiid, Exum

February 4th, 2014 at 6:43pm CST by Ryan Raroque

Here’s the latest we’ve come across regarding the 2014 NBA Draft:

Adam Zagoria of Zagsblog.com (via Jeff Goodman of ESPN) tweets that Kansas center Joel Embiid is leaning toward staying another year in school. If true, this significantly impacts the 2014 draft, as the 7’0 big man has been projected by some to be the number one overall pick in June.
In a piece for Zagsblog, Zagoria mentions that there are some sources close to the Kansas program who believe that Embiid would prefer to stay in school, although they also think the opportunity to play in the NBA next year may eventually be too great to pass up.
In that same article, NBA analyst Greg Anthony tells Zagoria that he thinks Embiid should return to Kansas for another season: “(Joel’s) instincts aren’t where you want them to be. At (the NBA) level, they don’t teach, they coach…Our league drafts potential, it doesn’t draft a polished, finished product. I think a lot of these kids are really, really good and really talented but a lot of them could use another year.”
Anthony applied the same logic to other heralded collegiate freshmen, including Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, Julius Randle, and Aaron Gordon: “I would say that Jabari’s probably the most polished of all of them…And listen, it’s gonna be hard for them not to come out, I get that part. But it wouldn’t hurt any of them to come back to school…I’m a proponent of guys being able to come out of high school. I think these kids are more talented than the draft we had a year ago, but you want them to be a little bit more polished when they come here.
Prospective 2014 lottery pick Dante Exum made it recently known that he’d like to be drafted by the Lakers next June, getting the ball rolling on speculation that his representation might try to find a way to dissuade undesired teams from drafting him. Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders doesn’t put any faith into the idea that Exum’s agent can force the Australian point guard’s way to Los Angeles, adding that the rookie contract scale removes a lot of power out of the agent’s hands during the draft process. Overall, Kyler believes Exum’s comment has been blown out of proportion and warns not to read into it too much at this point, especially since Exum has yet to meet with a single team (All Twitter links).

Odds & Ends: Suns, Nets, Celtics, Ariza

February 4th, 2014 at 3:17pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Suns are exploring their trade options with Emeka Okafor‘s expiring contract, but if they use it to bring in Pau Gasol or another player via trade, Jeff Hornacek insists it won’t be someone who’ll disrupt the locker room, as Paul Coro of the Arizona Republic observes.

“Our guys have great chemistry,” Hornacek said. “If they ever do anything to bring a guy in here, that guy is going to have to figure out what makes us good chemistry-wise, and he’s going to have to fit in. That’s like every team.”

Here’s more from around the league, with two weeks and two days to go until the trade deadline:

Nets GM Billy King isn’t looking to trade injured Brook Lopez, but he tells Grantland’s Zach Lowe that he’s open to deals that would bring draft picks to Brooklyn.
The Celtics are high on Chris Johnson, though Boston’s proximity to the tax line may keep the team from re-signing him for the season when his second 10-day deal expires Thursday night, as Chris Forsberg of ESPNBoston.com examines.
Trevor Ariza is performing well in a contract year, and the Wizards will probably make a strong push to re-sign him, according to J. Michael of CSNWashington.com.
Chad Ford of ESPN.com heard a couple of weeks ago that the Bucks are unlikely to pull off a major deadline trade, but in his latest Insider-only “Tank Rank” piece, he says they’d like to acquire a young player or a first-round draft pick in exchange for their veterans.
In the same piece, Ford suggests the Magic are making Jameer Nelson and Glen Davis available.
Draft prospect Dante Exum would prefer to play for the Lakers, and Jabari Davis of Basketball Insiders wonders if agent Rob Pelinka would try to use the threat of Exum playing next season overseas to dissuade other teams from drafting him.
The city of San Francisco received a signed petition that proposes a vote on regulations that would erect a hurdle to the Warriors‘ plans for an arena in the city. The San Jose Mercury News has the details.

Odds & Ends: Exum, Nuggets, Cavs, Pistons

February 3rd, 2014 at 3:45pm CST by Chuck Myron

The return of Slovenian native Sasha Vujacic to the NBA today, on a 10-day contract with the Clippers, gives the league 93 players born outside the U.S., and they hail from a record 39 different countries, notes Chris Mannix of SI.com (Twitter link). The globalization of the game doesn’t figure to let up soon, as there’s news on the top overseas draft prospect amid today’s look around the NBA:

Dante Exum wants to mimic Kobe Bryant‘s successful leap from high school to the pros, and that’s what led him to hire Bryant’s agent Rob Pelinka, the Australian point guard prospect tells Jon Tuxworth of The Canberra Times. Exum shares more about his decision to enter this year’s draft and his hopes for instant playing time once he’s in the league.
The Nuggets, Cavs, Pistons and Grizzlies would all like to swing deals by the deadline, as TNT’s David Aldridge writes in his latest Morning Tip column for NBA.com.
Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times categorizes nine Bulls trade candidates, and says the team won’t part with Taj Gibson unless it’s certain that a star player will sign with Chicago in free agency this summer. The Lakers, Wizards and Bobcats have reportedly inquired about Gibson.
Raymond Felton has changed agents, dropping Tony Dutt of Dutt Sports Services Inc. to join Wasserman Media Group, as Liz Mullen of SportsBusiness Journal reports in a subscription-only piece. Thad Foucher and Makhtar N’Diaye will handle representation for Felton, who can’t opt out of his deal with the Knicks until the summer of 2015.
Von Wafer has signed to play for Russia’s Krasny Oktyabr Volgograd, the team announced (translation via Sportando’s Enea Trapani). The six-year NBA veteran has also played in China and for the D-League’s Bakersfield Jam this season.

Odds & Ends: Stern, Nuggets, Marshall

January 31st, 2014 at 4:31pm CST by Chuck Myron

Agent David Falk believes outgoing commissioner David Stern has set the league up for long-lasting labor peace, as he tells Ken Berger of CBSSports.com.

“I think the TV revenues are going to grow dramatically in the next agreement,” Falk said. “And it’s so damaging to the business of the NBA to shut it down. Personally, I think it was irresponsible for Billy [Hunter] to have allowed it to be shut down twice. The players lost $1.25 billion that they’ll never make up and they got nothing for it. And why would the owners shut it down? To get 5 percent more? The potential for where the league should be at the end of the current agreement is so high — if it’s done properly — that to be greedy to try to steal a few percent is foolish.”

Falk also told Berger that Stern said he envisioned drastic changes to the schedule and starting up a separate, NBA-caliber league in Europe or Asia when he took over as commissioner 30 years ago. None of that happened, of course, but Stern did get around to plenty during his tenure, which ends today. Here’s more from the league he helped mold:

The Nuggets aren’t sure Nate Robinson will play again this season because of an ACL injury, notes Terry Frei of the Denver Post, who believes the team should turn to Andre Miller in his absense. The Nuggets are considering that, but it’s still unlikely that Miller will suit up for Denver again, writes fellow Post scribe Chris Dempsey.
Kendall Marshall uses slights that date back to his recruitment to the University of North Carolina as motivation, and he finds it odd that so many were quick to label his NBA career a bust, as the Lakers point guard tells Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer. “I’m 22 years old. I’m still evolving as a player,” Marshall said. “Look at a guy like Ty Lawson – he’s 26 and he’s still getting better. So much of this is about opportunity.”
Scouts tell Chad Ford of ESPN.com that they continue to rank Marcus Smart as a better point guard prospect than Syracuse’s Tyler Ennis, but Ennis is nonetheless a fast riser, as Ford and Kevin Pelton examine in an Insider-only piece.

Draft Notes: Ennis, Randle, Hairston

January 29th, 2014 at 2:12pm CST by Chuck Myron

Chad Ford of ESPN.com Insider and Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.com have updated their lists of the top draft prospects, with both in agreement that Joel Embiid, Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker are first, second and third, respectively. Embiid has begun to pull away from the pack in the eyes of scouts and GMs in recent weeks, according to Ford, who shares plenty of thoughts about his latest rankings, as we highlight below amid today’s draft chatter:

Some scouts who’ve spoken to Ford believe that Tyler Ennis of Syracuse may have eclipsed Australia’s Dante Exum and Oklahoma State’s Marcus Smart as the best point guard prospect. Ennis is No. 10 in Ford’s rankings and No. 13 for Givony.
Teams have stopped discussing Julius Randle as a potential No. 1 pick, Ford writes. The Kentucky power forward checks in at No. 5 for Ford and is at No. 4 with Givony.
P.J. Hairston explains to Jim Hlavac of DraftExpress.com what he’ll say in pre-draft interviews with NBA teams about the transgressions that led to the end of his college career. Hairston, playing for the Texas Legends of the D-League, is draft-eligible this year. He’s No. 28 on Givony’s board and No. 33 in Ford’s eyes.