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Pacific Notes: Murray, Lakers Workout, Kuminga, Moody, Warriors’ Pick

June 20th, 2022 at 10:17pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Jaden Ivey, the top rated point guard in the draft, hasn’t worked out for the Kings, who hold the fourth overall pick. It may be a moot point, as Sacramento’s brass is high on Iowa forward Keegan Murray, according to Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports. The Kings arranged for the prospect to have dinner with the team stars, De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis, during his visit. Murray was one of top scorers in Division I last season at 23.5 PPG along with 8.7 RPG.

If he’s selected fourth overall, Murray could slot into the Kings’ frontcourt alongside Sabonis and Harrison Barnes.

We have more from the Pacific Division:

  • The Lakers continued to do their homework despite not owning a draft pick, as they worked out six prospects on Monday, Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times tweets. That group included Javante McCoy (Boston University), Keve Aluma (Virginia Tech), Khalifa Diop (Gran Canaria), Jeenathan Williams (Buffalo), Malik Osborne (Florida State) and Danko Brankovic (Cibona).
  • Lottery picks Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody got the rare experience of playing on a championship team in their first year. Though they didn’t play large roles in the postseason, the Warriors rookies got invaluable experience as their playing time grows in future seasons, Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN writes. “I never really worry about whether we’re playing, not playing,” Kuminga said. “As long as I’m still here, learning, getting better every day. When my moments get called, I know I’ll be ready. … Everybody here [is] just helping me, way more than dudes [other rookies around the league] are, wherever they are right now.”
  • The Warriors hold the No. 28 pick but they might not add an rookie, according to Jeremy Woo of Sports Illustrated. The Warriors are looking to trade the pick, in part because of their huge payroll and also because they’ve already got a trio of young players — James Wiseman, Kuminga and Moody — fighting for rotation minutes next season.
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Central Notes: Mathurin, Daniels, Beauchamp, Pistons, Vucevic

June 9th, 2022 at 5:22pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Sitting at No. 6 in the draft order, the Pacers have some projected lottery picks coming in on Friday, Scott Agness of Fieldhouse Files tweets.

Arizona’s Bennedict Mathurin, ranked No. 8 on ESPN’s Best Available list, is visiting the Pacers for a solo workout. G League Elite’s Dyson Daniels (No. 6) and Baylor’s Jeremy Sochan (No. 15) are among a group of six players coming in earlier on Friday. Kameron McGusty (Miami), Ziga Samar (Urbas Fuenlabrada), Jermaine Samuels (Villanova) and Pavel Savkov (Iraurgi SB) will join that duo.

We have more from the Central Division:

  • The Cavaliers, who hold the No. 14 selection, took a look at G League Ignite wing and potential lottery pick MarJon Beauchamp on Wednesday, according to Chris Fedor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Potential second-rounder Alabama’s Keon Ellis visited the same day. Wagner’s Alex Morales also had a workout with the Cavs on Wednesday, Adam Zagoria of ZagsBlog.com tweets. Florida State forward Malik Osborne worked out there on Tuesday, Bosco Institute tweets.
  • Don’t expect the Pistons to try to move into the top three of the draft to snare one of the top bigs, James Edwards III of The Athletic speculates. Edwards doubts the franchise would surrender young assets at this stage of the rebuild. He anticipates the Pistons would have to part with at least Saddiq Bey or Isaiah Stewart along with the No. 5 pick to move up a couple of spots and that doesn’t make much sense unless they’re getting a surefire superstar in return.
  • While rumors are swirling that the Bulls may part with Nikola Vucevic, Darnell Mayberry of The Athletic is somewhat skeptical Chicago is eager to move on from its starting center. Vucevic still has supporters in high places in Chicago due to his professionalism, versatility and consistency. If the Bulls do trade Vucevic, they’ll have to receive an obvious upgrade in return.
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Southeast Draft Notes: Murray, Hawks, Wizards, Hornets

June 2nd, 2022 at 7:35pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Magic hold the No. 1 pick and Iowa’s Keegan Murray isn’t expected to go higher than No. 4 in the lottery. That didn’t prevent Orlando from doing its due diligence on the high-scoring wing. Murray came in for a pre-draft workout on Thursday, Khobi Price of the Orlando Sentinel tweets. The two sides also had a discussion during the draft combine in Chicago, Price adds.

We have more developments from the Southeast Division:

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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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