NBA decision looming, Briscoe's stock needs a boost – The Courier-Journal
LEXINGTON, Ky. – With three final decisions made, freshman guard Isaiah Briscoe looks like the only remaining player on Kentucky’s roster who might seriously flirt with leaving for the NBA draft. But barring a big jump in stock over the next six weeks, his pro prospects for 2016 aren’t great.
“He’s in a tough position because everyone is taking advantage of this rule to test the waters,” ESPN draft analyst Chad Ford said. “It creates an incredibly crowded field for Briscoe. Every year, in a normal draft, there will be five, six bubble guys that will just go ahead and stick their necks out and take the chance, let the process play out and if they play great, there’s a chance to move up dramatically in the draft.
“But the problem this year is there are so many players who fit that category. Virtually every decent freshman in the country has declared for the draft this year, and it’s creating a really crowded environment. Given all the names I see out there right now, I don’t see how Briscoe moves himself into first-round consideration.”
Teammates Jamal Murray, Skal Labissiere and Tyler Ulis, all projected first-round picks, have announced plans to hire an agent and leave school. Briscoe hasn’t said a word publicly about his plans, although coach John Calipari announced soon after the season that all of his eligible players would technically throw their names into the draft – with a caveat.
Most will take advantage of a new NCAA rule to which Ford alluded, which allows underclassmen to enter the draft, participate in the NBA combine and work out for individual teams, gathering valuable information about their stock in the process, with a deadline of 10 days after the combine to withdraw and return to school. That dropout date this year is May 25.
At the moment, Briscoe, a 6-foot-3 guard who started 33 times and averaged 9.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, 3.1 assists and a steal per game at Kentucky this season, is ranked 80th by DraftExpress.com and 84th by ESPN among eligible prospects for this year’s draft. There will only be 60 players selected on June 23.
“He’s probably going to be on the outside looking in,” said Draft Express founder and Jonathan Givony, who is based in Briscoe’s home state of New Jersey and has followed his career closely since high school. “If the deadline were today and he had to decide whether to withdraw his name and he called me and said, ‘Jonathan, what should I do?’ I would recommend going back to school. But the deadline isn’t today, so he’s got some time to go out and go do some workouts, go get some feedback, and see kind of what the professional teams think.”
There’s a lot Briscoe would need to show in those evaluation settings to improve his draft stock. While an excellent defender, rebounder and finisher – he shot 59.4 percent at the rim this season – he hit only 5 of 37 3-point attempts (13.5 percent) and a just 46 percent of his free throws.
“It’s strange,” Givony said, “because he was never a guy who couldn’t make free throws. We have a huge sample size, almost 60 games he played in (AAU) – twice as many games as he played in college – and he shot like 75 percent at the free-throw line. That is consistently what he did in every setting, like with USA Basketball, so obviously something is going on there with his confidence. I don’t think he’s that tragic of a free-throw shooter.”
Playing in the same backcourt with Ulis and Murray, thus relegated almost to a small forward role, might have also have hurt Briscoe, a former McDonald’s All-American point guard.
“He’s a guy that kind of grew up with the ball in his hands all the time,” Givony said, “but he didn’t really have the opportunity to do that this year. So I think that’s where, at not just the combine but also workouts – I’m sure he’ll get a couple workout invites – he can come in and show he’s better with the ball than perhaps we were able to see. Playing off the ball, he’s not a very good shooter, and that’s a concern teams have.”
Of course, if Briscoe returns to Kentucky, he’ll find himself in another crowded backcourt. The Wildcats have signed McDonald’s All-Americans De’Aaron Fox and Malik Monk, the top-rated point guard and shooting guard in the Class of 2016, respectively.
Ford figures Briscoe could realistically work himself into consideration for the second round of this year’s draft with strong showings over the next few weeks. If he’s OK with spending next season in the NBA Development League – UK alums Dakari Johnson and twins Andrew and Aaron Harrison all did that this season – that is certainly an option.
“There’s not downside to him testing the waters,” Ford said. “You can’t hurt yourself in that process. But the likelihood of him turning into a first-round pick and deciding, ‘I’m going to bolt Kentucky,’ I don’t see that happening. I think if he bolts Kentucky, he’s going to bolt because he looks at the incoming class and feels perhaps he’s not going to play as big a role on the team as he did last year and it’s just better for him to go ahead and move on.
“I think that will be much more the consideration than whether he’s a first-round pick.”
Kyle Tucker can be reached at (502) 582-4361. Email him at [email protected].
