Monday, June 16, 2008

Draft withdrawl

It's past 5 p.m. on the East coast, meaning those college underclassmen and underage Europeans who have been testing the waters for the last month are either in or out of the 2008 NBA Draft. I've noted a few surprises looking over the unofficial list at Draft Express.

North Carlina guard Ty Lawson going back to school (ESPN has confirmed this), along with fellow teammates Wayne Ellington and Danny Green. Lawson said last Thursday that he was "60/40" in favor of staying in the draft, so I guess that qualifies as a slight surprise. He had a good workout with the Blazers from what I could tell, but he is probably one of those guys who could end up being a lottery lock by staying another year.

Chase Budinger has decided to give it another go at Arizona. A lot of draft prognosticators seemed to think he would have fit well here in Portland, but he probably fits in better with the Wildcats, at least next year.

Two Europeans who worked out for the Blazers, Rodrigue Beaubois and Giorgi Shermadini, have withdrawn. I thought both (though especially Beaubois) were legitimate options to be picked with one of the Blazers' three second rounders, though both would have almost certainly have been asked to continue working on their crafts overseas.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

The blazers staff went down to Oakkand to see some player workout woou you know who they where and how whose workouts went. Chuck

Will Wiens said...

They went down to Oakland to see a bunch of player, about 24 i think. Kids that are likely late first rounders and early second rounders. It was a big camp set up by 6 teams but i think most teams were represented there. It wasn't just one player down there.