Doug McDermott Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Draft Updates: McDermott, Jean-Charles

April 25th, 2013 at 4:10pm CST by Luke Adams

Doug McDermott has elected to return to Creighton for his senior season, forgoing the 2013 NBA draft, reports Jeff Goodman of CBSSports.com. McDemott had been weighing his options for weeks, but ultimately decided not to let the perception that 2013's class is weak affect his decision.

"If I'm going to play in the NBA, I'm going to play this year or next year," McDermott said. "I'm not buying into the fact that I had to go this year because the draft was considered weaker. [Kyle Korver] told me that I'm going to have to beat out guys whether I'm a first-rounder or I wind up going in the second round."

McDermott had been ranked 39th on Jonathan Givony's big board at DraftExpress.com and 50th on Chad Ford's at ESPN.com.

Meanwhile, a prospect that ranks slightly ahead of McDermott on both boards (35th and 47th respectively) has officially entered the 2013 draft. Agent Pedja Materic announced (via Twitter) that French Guyana native Livio Jean-Charles will go pro.

Jean-Charles recently turned heads at the Nike Hoop Summit, scoring 27 points and grabbing 13 boards in the World team's victory over the U.S. The 19-year-old power forward was named MVP of the game.

Draft Notes: Early Entrants, McDermott, Pressey

April 10th, 2013 at 2:05pm CST by Luke Adams

With the NCAA's early entry withdrawal deadline less than a week away, at least two more underclassmen are putting their names into this year's draft class today. Missouri junior Phil Pressey has declared his intent, while Indiana sophomore Cody Zeller will do the same later this afternoon at a press conference. As we wait to see what other early entrants will enter the mix for the 2013 draft, here are a few of the latest draft-related links:

A number of NBA GMs believe that the NCAA's conference shake-ups, and the "changing caliber of competition" at the college level will influence players' decisions to declare early, tweets Chris Mannix of SI.com.
Creighton's Doug McDermott will likely wait until the NBA's early-entry deadline (April 28th), rather than the NCAA's withdrawal deadline (April 16th), to make a decision on the draft, according to Jeff Goodman of CBSSports.com (Twitter link). As Goodman notes (via Twitter) and as others have pointed out, there's little upside for a player to officially declare his intent before the NBA's deadline, since it limits his options.
Goodman adds in a separate tweet that he believes Missouri's Pressey made a "poor decision" to go pro after his junior year.
With the NCAA Tournament now in the rear-view mirror, NBA.com's Scott Howard-Cooper updates his mock draft, though there aren't many changes at the top of his board.