NBA Draft Pushed To Oct. 15, New NCAA Withdrawal Date Expected

The NBA Draft Lottery and the Draft itself have been pushed back on the calendar, and a new NCAA Withdrawal date for college players is expected to follow shortly.

The Draft Lottery will now be held Aug. 25 with the Draft on Oct. 15, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. The old dates were May 19 and June 25, respectively.

The old NCAA Withdrawal date was Wednesday, but that will now spring forward as well.

“Three weeks ago we announced that the deadline would be extended indefinitely until the NBA made an official decision on the postponed combine, pre-draft process, and draft,” Danny Gavitt of the NCAA told this reporter this week.

“We have an internal plan in place to announce a new withdrawal date and timeline. But we won’t communicate until the NBA announces their plan.”

On May 1, the NBA announced it was postponing the Combine and Lottery. With the NBA restart set for late July in Orlando, sources said the Combine could take place there as well.

More than 200 players originally announced for the NBA Draft, including a number who were just testing the waters. But without the ability to work out for teams in person, they have been reduced to having Zoom meetings with NBA franchises.

The revised calendar has several implications for players and teams.

As far as the teams, they now have several more months to evaluate prospects via film study and Zoom calls.

“It gives NBA teams ample opportunity to use their resources in order to gauge the prospects as accurately as they possibly can,” said NBA Draft expert Rashad Phillips.

Still, as of now, no in-person evaluations are possible due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“With nothing being completely clear in terms of workouts, I think it makes the process more difficult,” one NBA Western Conference scout said. “We’re not allowed to watch any workouts as of right now.”

That could hurt certain players who might excel in individual or group workouts, Phillips said.

“It’s just unfortunate that the kids who are on the bubble won’t get to prove themselves with the Porsmouth Camp and individual workouts because a lot of kids move up the draft boards by performing well in these workouts for these teams,” Phillips said.

“And a lot of teams take their shortcut by bringing a kid in. They won’t scout a kid all year and they bring him in for a workout. You look at Russell Westbrook, when he was drafted so high it was because of his workout. It wasn’t what he did at UCLA. It was when they brought him to the workout, they said this guy is an athletic freak and he went top five.

“So you probably won’t get any guys being drafted high because of their workouts so you are going to miss that element of it which is sad. I look at a kid like a Jahmi’us Ramsey [of Texas Tech], I believe he would be the type of kid that you will see how good he is in a workout as opposed to his Synergy stats and all that stuff.”

Another issue is the large number of players who are “testing the waters” but haven’t been able to work out for teams and now must make a decision later on. Villanova sophomore Saddiq Bey, for example, is a likely first-round pick, but one source said he is “50/50” on staying or going.

If he were to return to Villanova, they would be one of the favorites to win the NCAA championship next season.

“Personally, I have him slotted as a first-round pick but Saddiq is a kid that came on the scene late, terrific stretch player, could have a little bit of that Khris Middleton type of feel,” Phillips said.

“Again, it comes down to the evaluations from teams. But a kid like that, it does hurt him. And you look at a kid like Aaron Nesmith from Vanderbilt. He got injured early but shot 52 percent from 3 so a lot of NBA teams want to see him in the workouts to see if he’s healthy for one. And for two, is he really as good as advertised? That’s what kind of sucks for me, is missing out on that element.”


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