Another college basketball season is in the books and Kansas is the men’s national champion while South Carolina is the women’s title holders. While the start of the offseason is always difficult, and withdrawals are likely, this year we, as Wisconsin fans, actually have some NBA Draft stuff to look forward to!
Big Ten Player of the Year, Lute Olson National Player of the Year, Jerry West Award winner, first team All-American and all-around swell dude Johnny Davis declared for the draft and is expected to be picked in the lottery on June 23. Most of the major players in mock drafts have released an update since the end of the tourney, so this is a good time to take stock of things.
Let’s take a look around the internet and see where NBA Draft Knowers have Davis being selected and which team he may call home for the next few years.
Note: all of these mock drafts use different criteria for which teams will pick where and used NBA standings from different days, so you’ll see the same team picking in different spots as you read through this. Hopefully this will still be useful for you to get an idea of what teams Davis might end up on.
- First up is our friend Ricky O’Donnell at the SB Nation mothership. Ricky is a pal of mine but I am DISGUSTED with where he has Davis going in the draft! In his most recent update, Ricky has Davis dropping out of the top-10 all the way to...No. 11 and the Portland Trail Blazers. Outrageous!
- Jonathan Givony and Mike Schmitz over at ESPN ($) see Davis going to the Sacramento Kings at No. 7.
- Yahoo! Sports’ Krysten Peek has Davis going ninth overall to the San Antonio Spurs. I like this a lot because the Spurs have a lot of talented, young pieces and Davis would fit the timeline for contending for a top-seed in the West in the next year or two.
- Kyle Irving at Sporting News thinks that Davis will end up in New Orleans with the No. 8 pick in the first round. On Davis’ performance against Iowa State in the NCAA Tournament, Irving notes: “Even with a poor shooting night, Davis still impacted the game with his relentless motor and defensive intensity, two things that make him so appealing at the NBA level.”
- USA Today’s Jeff Zillgit also has Davis going to the Pelicans at No. 8.
Johnny Davis declares for the 2022 NBA Draft on NBA Today. #Badgers @JohnnyDavis @espn pic.twitter.com/q23zCvGR9c
— Karley Marotta (@Karley_Marotta) March 31, 2022
- The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor, like Peek, thinks that Davis will go to the Spurs in the first round at No. 9. “Perhaps Davis and Dejounte Murray aren’t an ideal match, just like Murray and Derrick White never were because of their respective shooting limitations. Davis also still needs to develop into a reliable shooter. But if he does become efficient his upside is hard to ignore at this point in the draft. Davis would have the versatility to score from outside, get to the basket, or even post up. He’s a score-first guard but a willing passer and a hard-nosed defender. There are Spursian qualities to him,” O’Connor says.
- Sam Vecenie at The Athletic ($) hasn’t updated his mock after the tournament ended, but his most recent is from Final Four weekend, so Davis’ spot probably wasn’t affected too much. He thinks that Davis will go to the Pelicans at No. 10. Vecenie notes: “His ceiling on his draft status has dropped a bit in recent months, but I’d still anticipate him going in the No. 7 to No. 17 range.”