Not sure what to think about Pryor. He committed to Oregon a few weeks ago. Hopefully, he looks good, but not good enough to be drafted in the first round.....until next year.
Yeah by a couple weeks. First one last year was May 23rd. This group is more priority UDFA types . Pate (55), Henshall (64) and Olbrich (78) are the only guys in ESPN's current top 100.
So we're definitely thinking about buying into the second round this time around as opposed to selling both of our picks last year.
I wonder if we already have a deal in place for say 10/Grant and it’s all contingent on the lottery results.
combine starts May 11, lotto on May 12. Me, Ronnie Coleman, Colbert, and Julius Maddox have birthdays on the 13th.
Excuse me if this has already been posted, but Sam Vecenie of The Athletic has an article out this week on the NBA Draft. I was surprised to see him saying that the draft is considered by GM’s to be pretty weak overall. Maybe Blazers’ management had a better reason for not tanking than we knew? “Mainly because of the proliferation of the name, image and likeness (NIL) marketplace in college basketball, there are only 106 early entrants to the NBA Draft, a drastically lower number than the 195 who entered last year and the 242 who entered the year before. This peaked in 2021, when 353 early entrants declared for the draft. What does that mean for the draft? First and foremost, this number is expected to be whittled down substantially by May 28, the deadline for players with remaining collegiate eligibility to withdraw from the draft. Many of the players on the early entry list are seen as strong bets to return to school because they are slated to make seven figures in NIL dollars. If the choice is that you have guaranteed money on the table from a college or you’re on the borderline of getting a guaranteed deal from the NBA versus a two-way contract (which would only pay approximately $600,000 next season), most players and their representatives are going to take the guaranteed money. But an intriguing game of chicken has also now developed in which agents and players are trying to figure out if so many guys are going to pull out of the draft that it is worthwhile to enter this year, because this would be their best chance to be selected. That’s where the process stands at this point, and unsurprisingly, it has decimated the depth of this class in a big way. NBA teams with selections in the 40s are quite worried as to whether those picks will have much value. Even teams in the late 20s and 30s have serious questions as to whether those picks will deliver commensurate value with what a normal selection in that range will bring. This draft was not seen as all that loaded to begin with. Teams have real questions about whether this draft will bring average value starting from about No. 3 on. There are areas of the draft where the talent levels off for most scouts and executives (some believe the middle of the lottery is a good sweet spot, others see the late teens as a solid area to derive value). The top two are the only slots of this draft where teams have a particular amount of excitement. Indeed, that’s why the draft lottery will be so important. Teams like the Utah Jazz could go from building their organization over the next decade around Cooper Flagg, a player seen as a genuine franchise-changer, to someone like Tre Johnson at No. 5, a good player with significant upside but with many more questions, if they fall out of the top two. There might not be a day that shapes the future of the NBA for the rest of 2025 more than May 12, when the lottery gods smile upon one team that can select Flagg.”
Yeah this isn't the 2003 draft... or at least it doesn't look like it but it's a shit ton better than last year's draft. I don't see any guys who are expecting to go in the top 20 of this draft going back to school for another year. The NIL money just isn't that good and it just means another year between now and when they can get that first contract extension... if they believe in themselves. I would think the NIL money would have a bigger impact on the second round talent level and maybe late first round.
Agreed. That’s the way I read it. The NIL dollars are an attraction to guys at the back end of the draft who might not even get a guaranteed contract in the NBA. Not likely to keep a top-20 pick out of the draft.
Shit, if the #5 pick isn’t a game changer than what the hell are we gonna get at #10!!?? Not even worthy of taking my bags to my room FAMS!
