Rough Draft
Some Odds and Ends on this Year's Class to Warm Up for Draft Season
by Joe Gabriele (@CavsJoeG)
5/23/22 | Cavs.com
Last Tuesday night, the 2022 NBA Lottery took place in Chicago, and the Wine & Gold learned that they’ll select at No. 14 when the Draft rolls around on June 23.
Betwixt now and then, Cavs.com hopes to fill your plate with all kinds of useful information – positional breakdowns, numbers from the Combine, scouts’ takes and, of course, wingspans.
But before we deep-dive into some of the important information on this year’s potential freshman class, here are some relatively useless facts about some of kids who might hear their name – and fulfill a lifetime dream – in just over a month …
* Many of the young guns projected to go in this year’s Draft have a direct lineage to the NBA. Others to the WNBA. Others to the NFL. The point is that some of these kids have it in their blood.
Duke forward, AJ Griffin, is the son of Adrian Griffin – who spent 10 seasons in the NBA and is currently an assistant with the Raptors.
Gonzaga big man Chet Holmgren’s dad, Dave, was also a seven-footer and played college ball for Minnesota in the mid-80s.
St. John’s swingman Julian Champagnie has a twin brother, Justin, who currently plays for the Raptors. Their dad, Ranford, played soccer for St. John’s in the mid-90s, winning a national title in 1996.
Potential top pick, Auburn’s Jabari Smith Jr.’s dad played four seasons in the NBA – with Sacramento, Philly and the Nets after being taken with 45th overall pick out of LSU. Smith is also a distant cousin of former top pick, Kwame Brown.
Rutgers’ guard Ron Harper Jr. is the son of the former Cavalier, Bulls and Lakers great.
Purdue’s Jaden Ivey’s mother, Niele, is a former WNBA player and the current head coach at Notre Dame and his father, Javin Hunter, played for the Ravens and Niners in the NFL. His grandfather, James, played for the Detroit Lions.
Kanas guard Ochai Agbaji’s father and mother both played hoops at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Iowa’s Keegan Murray’s dad, Kenyon, also played for the Hawkeyes. And Baylor’s Kendall Brown’s father once played for the Harlem Globetrotters and is currently a behavior intervention specialist in St. Paul.
Duke’s Paolo Banchero’s father, Mario, was a football player for Washington when he met his mother, Rhonda, who left school as the Huskies’ all-time leading scorer and was selected in the 3rd round of the WNBA Draft in 2000.
* Chet Holmgren – who could very well go No. 1 overall to Orlando this June – was a 6th grade teammate of Jalen Suggs – who went to the Magic out of Gonzaga at No. 5 overall last year – at Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis and then through high school.
* Fast-rising Baylor forward Jeremy Sochan was born in Oklahoma, grew up in Great Britain and is a member of the Polish National Team.
* Holmgren underwent a growth spurt of eight inches between 8th and 9th grade. But, of course, he wasn’t the only one who endured a rapid surge.
Ochai Agbaji grew nine inches between his freshman and junior year of high school. UC Santa Clara’s Jalen Williams sprouted eight inches from his sophomore to his junior year. And Senegalese center Ibou Dianko Badji had a 7-6 wingspan when he was 15 years old.
* High-flying G-League wing MarJon Beauchamp was coached in high school during his freshman year by former Portland Trailblazers star, Brandon Roy, and his grandfather was the first African American mayor of Yakima, Washington.
* Mississippi State’s Iverson Molinar played for Russell Westbrook’s AAU team, was named after Allen Iverson and speaks English, Spanish and Italian.
* Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Patrick Baldwin Jr. was the youngest person ever to receive an offer to play at Duke and later became the highest-rated recruit to ever commit to a Horizon League program.
* Of course, this year’s Draft features plenty of excellent two-(and-sometimes-three)-sport-athletes.
Arizona’s explosive guard Bennedict Mathurin grew up in Quebec, played ice hockey and football and was the team’s quarterback.
Wisconsin’s Johnny Davis was also a high school quarterback and won the Dave Krieg Award as the state’s most outstanding senior signal-caller. (His father, Mark, was the 79th overall pick in 1985 by the Cavaliers, but cut that summer before he could ever play a game in Cleveland.)
G-Leaguer Dyson Daniels, whose father Ricky played college hoops for NC State, was a standout Australian Rules footballer growing up Down Under, while rugged Serbian forward Nikola Jovic grew up playing water polo
Growing up in Santo Domingo, high-scoring Overtime Elite guard Jean Montero’s first love was baseball, until he began playing basketball with his cousin using the wheels of an old bicycle.