Former Alabama guard John Petty Jr. traded to the Hornets organization

Former Alabama SG John Petty Jr. has been traded to the Hornets organization.

Former Alabama guard John Petty Jr. was traded from the Pelicans G-League affiliate, the Birmingham Squadron to the Charlotte Hornets G-League affiliate, the Greensboro Swarm.

Petty Jr. was a sharpshooter for the Crimson Tide from 2017-2021. In 2021, he was voted by SEC coaches as a First-Team All-SEC selection. As a senior, Petty Jr. also became Alabama’s all-time three-point scoring leader. Following the season, Petty Jr., entered the NBA draft and was signed as an undrafted free agent by the New Orleans Pelicans.

Petty Jr. has spent the past two seasons with the Birmingham Squadron. During that time, the Alabama native made 16 starts while averaging 7.4 points per game, 3.5 rebounds per game, and 1.8 assists per game.

With Petty Jr. joining the Hornets G-League affiliate, he will have to earn a spot on the NBA roster. If he is able to do so, he will become a fellow teammate of former Alabama forward Brandon Miller.

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow John Petty Jr.’s professional basketball career as well as other former Alabama players in the NBA.

Alabama MBB offers 2024 SG from Ohio, Jonathan Powell

Alabama offers highly sought-after 2024 shooting guard Jonathan Powell.

On Saturday, 2024 guard Jonathan Powell announced via Twitter that Alabama had reached out with an official offer. It is offer No. 10 for Powell up to this point.

Powell is listed at 6-foot-6 and 170 pounds. His size is something that head coach Nate Oats would love to have. In the past, he has had taller shooting guards in John Petty Jr. and Josh Primo who both stood at 6-foot-6.

Thus far, the Ohio native has impressed quite a number of coaches. Programs like Ohio State, Illinois, Notre Dame and Texas A&M have extended offers.

According to On3’s RPM, he is favored to commit to Xavier at 24.4% likelihood. There is not a clear favorite to land Powell. Perhaps, Alabama can come into the mix in the near future.

Powell is being recruited primarily by assistant coach and stellar recruiter Bryan Hodgson. Over the years, Hodgson has been the lead recruiter for [autotag]Jaden Bradley[/autotag], [autotag]Brandon Miller[/autotag], [autotag]Charles Bediako[/autotag], and Josh Primo. The Tide hope that Powell pays them a visit in the future.

Roll Tide Wire will continue to follow Alabama basketball as the offseason continues and the coaching staff hits the recruiting trail.

Live tracker: Here is where the top undrafted free agents have signed

The 2021 NBA draft has come and gone but the draft cycle still continues for a bit longer as the undrafted free agents find their new homes.

The 2021 NBA draft has come and gone but the draft cycle still continues for a bit longer as the undrafted free agents find their new homes.

While the following prospects didn’t get to hear their name called by the commissioner or deputy commissioner on Thursday night, they can find solace in the fact that their path to the pros is far from over. It’s not unheard of for an undrafted free agent to carve out a role for themselves in the NBA.

Some notable names, including Gonzaga’s Joel Ayayi and G League Ignite’s Daishen Nix, will join the fraternity of undrafted basketball players who hope to still make a name for themselves in the NBA.

Here is where the best remaining prospects have landed so far, according to reports:

A roundup of NBA sleepers draft analysts are higher on than others

Who owns the most real estate on Davion Mitchell Island? Who is buying stock in Sharife Cooper?

Everyone loves Cade Cunningham. It’s not a hot take for an analyst to say that Cunningham is their favorite player in the class. That’s not particularly interesting to read, either.

But what is fascinating, however, is when an analyst deviates from the norm and ranks someone significantly higher than where the prospect falls in other rankings. What does that tell us about their individual scouting process and what they value? Further, what does that tell us about the potential draftee?

Some folks call it “buying stock” in a player. Others, like ESPN’s Zach Lowe or The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, call it owning real estate on a player’s island. I like to refer to it as a “draft crush” when I wind up higher than consensus in my evaluation of a player.

My process is ridiculously tedious but the results can be fairly useful. I’ve tracked the evolution of more than sixty unique mock drafts, big boards and draft models from trusted analysts and popular accounts on Twitter.

Each placement is assigned a value based on Kevin Pelton’s draft pick trade value chart. I do this because, as Pelton notes, the difference in relative value between the No. 5 overall pick and the No. 7 overall is much more stark than, say, that of the No. 45 pick and the No. 47 pick.

After composing an aggregate score based on each ranking, I can see where each analyst strays from the pack.

I’ll leave the conclusions drawn from these results up to the reader. But if nothing else, this can eventually be used as a bragging point if one writer was higher than consensus on a draftee who eventually ends up outperforming his draft position.

2021 aggregate NBA mock draft 7.0: Ranking the full class of prospects

The 2021 NBA draft is less than a week away and we finally have an idea of who is in — and who has withdrawn — from the class.

The 2021 NBA draft is less than a week away and we finally have an idea of who is in – and who has withdrawn – from the class.

In order to get a better sense of where all of the prospects stand as of right now, we compiled mock drafts from NBADraft.net, CBS Sports, Bleacher Report, Yahoo, The Athletic, The Ringer, Yahoo, NBA Big Board and USA TODAY Sports Media Group’s For The Win to see where the prospects rank at the moment.

Please note that these rankings reflect the composite score to get a feel for consensus, not our own opinion.

Since our previous update last month, some of the players with the most positive momentum include Quentin Grimes, Joe Wieskamp, Vrenz Bleijenbergh, Aaron Wiggins, Justin Champagnie, Jericho Sims, Jason Preston, Josh Primo, Neemias Queta, Trey Murphy and Bones Hyland.

Among players who ranked on our previous update who have since withdrawn from the draft include Roko Prkacin (32), Marcus Bagley (39), Terrence Shannon (48), Ariel Hukporti (50), Max Abmas (53), Johnny Juzang (54), Jordan Hall (66), Carlos Alocen (69) and Ochai Agbaji (75).

The most notable omissions who remain in this class but not these rankings are Yves Pons, Scottie Lewis, Jay Huff, Marcus Zegarowski, Aamir Simms, Dalano Banton, Matt Mitchell, Jose Alvarado, Carlik Jones, Derrick Alston Jr., Romeo Weems, Balsa Koprivica, Chaundee Brown, Isaiah Miller, Jordan Schakel and D.J. Carton.

Note that for the offensive roles, we borrowed a fun idea from Todd Whitehead (formerly of Nylon Calculus) with help from our friends at Bball-Index.com to create a slightly tweaked formula from the version they use.

The goal of that is not to explain how well a player scores but rather offer context for the way that he was used on his most recent team. This should help you predict how he might be used at the next level.

Meanwhile, you can learn the latest updates on every single prospect who has been included in recent mock drafts by scrolling below.

HoopsHype’s Alberto de Roa contributed research to this report

2021 NBA Draft Big Board 5.0: Final rankings of the Top 100 prospects

With just over a week left until the 2021 NBA draft at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, it’s officially the most wonderful time of the year! 

With just over a week left until the 2021 NBA draft at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, it’s officially the most wonderful time of the year!

That means that after a slew of surprising early entry withdrawals impacted the worlds of both college and international basketball, the next generation of NBA talent is getting closer to entering the league. As players finalize their place on big boards in front offices, I wanted to offer my opinion on how I think those rankings should look.

Note that our list is certainly going to look different from the lists at ESPN, The Athletic, Bleacher Report and other publications. Player evaluation is an inexact science. Part of the process is being willing to admit when you were wrong about a player.

But avoiding group-think and ending higher than consensus on a player is how an NBA team ends up selecting them in the draft. With that in mind, here is who I would target if I were running a front office.

2021 NBA Draft Big Board 4.0: Top 100 prospects pre-combine and lottery

Now that the early entry list is officially out and combine invitations have been sent out, the 2021 NBA draft class is starting to finalize.

Now that the early entry deadline has passed and combine invitations have been sent out, the 2021 NBA draft class is starting to finalize.

Last year, the NCAA tournament and the combine were both canceled due to the pandemic. That made evaluations much tougher for scouts and front offices around the league. This year, the pre-draft process feels somewhat normal again for top basketball prospects who are set to join the pros.

As a new class of players prepares to turn professional, here is how we would currently rank this class based on what we have seen from them so far, with some of my picks that are higher than other experts have them ranked.