Early exit doesn’t hurt UK players’ NBA Draft stock. It’s Calipari who’s being questioned.
Anyone thinking the Kentucky stunning loss to Saint Peter’s might have an adverse effect on the NBA Draft stock of the Wildcats’ top players won’t find any sign of that in ESPN’s latest projections.
Following the first week of the NCAA Tournament — which included UK’s exit in a first-round upset — ESPN posted an updated 2022 mock draft. The results for the three Kentucky players listed matched up pretty much the same as the website’s mock draft from late last month.
Shaedon Sharpe, who joined the team in January but never played for the Cats, is No. 6 overall in the new mock draft, actually up two spots from last month. TyTy Washington, who mostly struggled after suffering an ankle injury in January, is at No. 14 overall — down four spots but still in the lottery. And Oscar Tshiebwe is at No. 42 overall, up one spot from the Feb. 23 mock draft.
There’s a chance all three could be gone this offseason.
Sharpe came to UK with the intention of sitting out the remainder of the 2021-22 season as a practice player — and he did just that — then returning for the 2022-23 season, when he’d be considered possibly college basketball’s top newcomer. NBA insiders and several draft and recruiting analysts still think he’ll go pro this year, however (as players projected as top-10 picks pretty much always do).
Calipari said a few weeks ago that he expected Sharpe to return to Kentucky, but he didn’t go that far on his final radio show Monday night, simply saying that he thinks the former No. 1-ranked recruit will “explore” his NBA options this offseason and that he hopes to coach him in real games next season.
Washington’s stock seemingly didn’t take much of a hit despite a relatively so-so end to the season, capped by a five-point, 2-for-10 performance in the loss to Saint Peter’s. He’s expected to keep his name in the NBA Draft.
Tshiebwe, the national player of the year, sounds like more of a 50-50 shot to return to Kentucky next season. He had 30 points and 16 rebounds in his season finale — and put up ridiculous rebounding numbers all season long — but some perceived limitations to his game are keeping him out of first-round territory, and there’s no guarantee another year of college would change that.
The withdrawal date for players to back out of the NBA Draft and return to college is expected to be June 1, so it’ll likely be a while before all of those Cats’ future plans are known.
Criticism of Calipari
ESPN’s lead NBA Draft analyst Jonathan Givony supplemented the new mock draft with breakdowns of several players’ NCAA Tournament performances, and the section with Washington got the most ink of any of them.
Givony pointed out Washington’s injury at Auburn and said that his overall health toward the end of the season and how much that impacted his drop in production would be “a major point of conversation” among teams in the NBA lottery over the next three months.
Much of Givony’s write-up on Washington, however, focused its criticisms on UK Coach John Calipari, who has been second-guessed by NBA types before regarding his approach to the game, especially on the offensive end.
UK did have an offense this season that the metrics loved — still ranked No. 5 nationally on KenPom — and put up big numbers in games against Kansas and Tennessee, among others. It often didn’t generate the same results over the last month of the season, however, with earlier injuries likely playing a part, poor shooting definitely playing a part, and opposing coaches figuring things out from there to finish the job.
In the immediate aftermath of Kentucky’s shocking loss Thursday night, Givony offered up a damning (but accurate) assessment of some of Kentucky’s issues in the Saint Peter’s game, tweeting several videos that highlighted problems on both sides of the floor, particularly focusing on the Wildcats’ offense.
In the mock draft accompaniment, Givony mentioned several former UK guards by name — Tyrese Maxey, Hamidou Diallo and Brandon Boston Jr. among them — who ended up being underdrafted but ultimately looked “vastly more comfortable in the NBA than they did in college” thanks to a more “modern” offensive approach they found in the pros.
“Were Washington’s weaknesses similarly accentuated by the extreme lack of shooting and spacing surrounding him?” Givony asked. “And will being placed in a more modern offensive system not built around post-ups, offensive rebounds and mid-range jumpers help solve some of the issues he faced this season with his struggles beating opponents off the dribble and finishing in traffic?”
In fairness to Calipari, a few of the other UK guards Givony mentioned — Devin Booker, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Tyler Herro — were drafted higher than their recruiting ranking out of high school projected, and there’s a long list of former Wildcats who have partially attributed their future success in the NBA to the culture of Calipari’s program.
Still, the comments on UK’s offense aren’t a good look for the Kentucky coach who has a stated objective of preparing young players for the league.
Givony concluded that Washington “should have done better” with his opportunities against the 15-seeded Peacocks, but he’s also still considered a lottery pick in this year’s draft, and the NBA analyst’s comments — along with his tweets to an audience of more than 170,000 followers — likely won’t do Kentucky any favors on the recruiting trail.
Two days after the NCAA Tournament loss, Calipari took to Twitter to thank UK fans for standing by the Wildcats, and to take some of the blame for the way the season ended.
“This team didn’t disappoint and I remain proud and fond of each of these players,” he wrote, in part. “Please steer your disappointment and anger toward me. These kids did this for all of the BBN and I wish I could have dragged them over the finish line.”
This story was originally published March 22, 2022 at 4:00 AM with the headline "Early exit doesn’t hurt UK players’ NBA Draft stock. It’s Calipari who’s being questioned.."
