When Arizona’s Brandon Randolph was passed over in Thursday’s NBA Draft, instead reportedly landing a summer-league invitation from the Minnesota Timberwolves, he was hardly the only former Pac-12 player who had a rough night.
In all, six Pac-12 players who left their schools early for the draft were not selected, with Arizona State’s Luguentz Dort and Oregon’s Louis King making particularly surprising slips off the draft board. Randolph, Oregon’s Kenny Wooten and UCLA’s Kris Wilkes and Moses Brown joined them outside the 60 overall selections.
Thursday marked the first time since 2016 and only the seventh time since 1988 that the Wildcats did not have a single player drafted.
And, with the notable exception of Washington’s Matisse Thybulle (who went 20th) and Jaylen Nowell (43), even the guys who were picked slipped from their projections.
Nobody fell further than Oregon’s Bol Bol, once an expected lottery pick who was a heavy recruiting target of Arizona before the 2017 federal investigation into college basketball became public.
Oregon center Bol Bol fell to the middle of the second round, was taken by Miami and then shipped to Denver.
One of 24 players invited to the draft’s “green room” — where only those expected to be first-round picks are placed, so as to avoid embarrassment — Bol instead slipped completely out of the first round and nearly half of the second before he was taken at No. 44. When Bol was finally called to the stage, taken by Miami to be later shipped to Denver, he was greeted with a loud chorus of sympathetic cheers.
During his ESPN interview immediately after he walked off the stage, Bol appeared to manage a halfhearted smile when asked how it felt.
“I’ve been dreaming of this my whole life and it feels pretty good,” Bol said, adding that he wanted to “just prove everyone wrong.”
USC guard Kevin Porter Jr., also projected as a possible lottery pick, was the last pick of the first round at No. 30.
Stanford’s KZ Okpala went No. 32 overall, while UCLA’s Jaylen Hands went 56th.
UCLA’s Jaylen Hands was the fifth-to-last pick. The L.A. Clippers quickly dealt him to the Brooklyn Nets.
Overall, the Pac-12 — a conference that produced the No. 1 pick last year (Arizona’s Deandre Ayton) and the Nos. 1 and 2 picks in 2017 (Washington’s Markelle Fultz and UCLA’s Lonzo Ball) — produced no lottery picks and only two first-rounders this time. It was the Pac-12’s lowest first-round total in the past nine drafts.
Marquee members Arizona and UCLA together produced fewer picks than Gonzaga, which had two, and that was with Hands as the fifth-to-last pick.
While Thursday’s results could be a product of the Pac-12’s relative mediocrity the past two seasons, the league’s bypassed players still will get chances to prove themselves.
Randolph’s high school, Westtown School of West Chester, Pennsylvania, tweeted Friday that Randolph will play for the Timberwolves’ summer-league team. There were no details available on whether Randolph has an invite to Minnesota’s veteran camp or other stipulations, and his agent has not been available for comment.
Wilkes, meanwhile, reportedly signed a two-way contract with the New York Knicks, the same thing Arizona’s Allonzo Trier did last summer after going undrafted. Dort, the Pac-12’s freshman of the year last season at ASU, signed a two-way deal with Oklahoma City, according to ESPN.
ASU forward Zylan Cheatham also signed a two-way deal, with New Orleans. Brown reportedly agreed to play summer-league ball for Houston, and it was unknown as of Friday where Wooten and King might land.
