To the dismay of many Miami Basketball fans, Hurricanes SG Bruce Brown recently announced that he is entering the 2018 NBA Draft in a simple tweet that stated “I will be declaring the 2018 NBA Draft!!” However, he has decided not to hire an agent, which allows him to go through the motions of a normal NBA prospect, such as performing drills at the NBA combine and speaking with teams. If his performance in any of these activities is not what he’d like, he can choose to withdraw his name from the draft and return to Miami as long as he decides before the June 11th deadline. A left-foot injury seriously hampered Bruce’s sophomore season, and the last we saw of him in a UM jersey was on January 12th, an overtime loss to Florida State. Since then, he underwent surgery on that foot on February 1st, in which recovery time was slated to be at least six weeks. This led to Brown missing the remainder of regular season, the ACC tournament, and the earliest he would have returned would have been Miami’s possible Sweet 16 matchup had they made it that far. Many thought Brown should have entered the draft during this time last season, in which he was projected by most to be a mid-1st round pick at the very least. He broke numerous freshman records for Miami and it will be very interesting to gauge his projected draft stock, especially after coming off his injury this season.
The one name that we have not heard from is freshman star Lonnie Walker. There have been reports from the Reading Eagle in his hometown Reading, PA, where his father says that he is still 50/50 on his decision on whether to make the jump or return. Walker suffered a broken meniscus in practice before the beginning of the regular season and initially started coming off the bench before eventually working his way into the starting lineup. He made a very lasting impression on scouts towards the second half of the season, where he stepped up in the absence of Brown, in which he averaged 14.5 points/game, including back-to-back 20+ point games against Florida State and Louisville in February. Most draft experts think that Walker has only scratched the surface of what he can possibly be and his ceiling will be extremely high.
The 2018 NBA Draft will take place on June 22nd at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, so until then, Canes fans can only hope that Brown and Walker will ultimately do what’s best for them in the long run.
The one name that we have not heard from is freshman star Lonnie Walker. There have been reports from the Reading Eagle in his hometown Reading, PA, where his father says that he is still 50/50 on his decision on whether to make the jump or return. Walker suffered a broken meniscus in practice before the beginning of the regular season and initially started coming off the bench before eventually working his way into the starting lineup. He made a very lasting impression on scouts towards the second half of the season, where he stepped up in the absence of Brown, in which he averaged 14.5 points/game, including back-to-back 20+ point games against Florida State and Louisville in February. Most draft experts think that Walker has only scratched the surface of what he can possibly be and his ceiling will be extremely high.
The 2018 NBA Draft will take place on June 22nd at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, so until then, Canes fans can only hope that Brown and Walker will ultimately do what’s best for them in the long run.