Tag: aday mara

Bruins sophomore Aday Mara set to play in Poland with Team Spain

Adey Mara playing at EuroBasket.

Despite the off-season, the UCLA Bruins Men’s basketball team has had plenty of time in the news this summer. Much of the news is coming from former Bruins, but many are staying involved with the game positively.

The latest news comes from the current team. Mick Cronin and his Bruins are set to have another big season, and one of his top athletes Aday Mara is going to get a chance to play this summer.

Mara is on the U20 team for Spain in July. The team will head to Poland, and team on North Macedonia in their first game on Saturday.

The 7’3, 240big man from Spain played in 28 games with the Bruins last season. He started 8 games and averaged just shy of 10 minutes per game.

Mara scored 3.5 points per game and averaged 1.9 rebounds per game. His time is expected to go up this season for the Bruins. Mara played on the Spain U17 team in 2022 and scored 12.6 points per game.

Celtics projected to take Spanish big man in way-too-early 2024 mock NBA draft

July is way too early to be thinking about the 2024 NBA draft, but for those who make a living reporting on it and projecting where each cohort’s prospects will end up being taken in it, it’s plenty late enough to get started

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For the bulk of NBA fans, early July is way too early to think about the 2024 NBA draft, but for those who make a living reporting on it and projecting where each year’s prospects will end up being taken, it’s plenty late enough to get started.

Such is the case with Brian Kalbrosky of our sister site For The Win.Β  Kalbrosky already sees a selection for the Boston Celtics out of the 2024 draft class.

That prospect would be Aday Mara GΓ³mez, a 7-foot-3 Spanish big man for Casademont Zaragoza of the Spanish Liga ACB. The UCLA commit put up “27 points, 10.8 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 1.8 steals and 4.9 blocks per 40 minutes for Spain during the U17 FIBA World Cup in 2022” and his “rating around the rim (ATR) was the best at the tournament, per Cerebro, and his pure scoring prowess (PSP) ranked second-best.”

“While he is committed to UCLA, his Spanish club has reportedly not let him out of his contract to make the transition. That could make it difficult for his draft stock depending on how long this situation takes to resolve.”

That could change whether he is even available for Boston to consider picking at such a late point in the draft and of course assumes the Celtics hang onto the pick.

But 7-foot-3 big men with skill are evidently popular in Boston lately, and having another ready in the pipeline (even if it is very unlikely they get anywhere near as good as Kristaps Porzingis) certainly isn’t a bad path to take.

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