Top-prospect Anthony Edwards has officially declared for the 2020 NBA draft.
For the first time in years, the Golden State Warriors are in line to hold a top-pick in the NBA draft. With no March Madness tournament and the college basketball season over due to the coronavirus pandemic, prospects are starting to declare for the NBA draft.
Star freshman Anthony Edwards has officially entered his name into the 2020 draft. In his first season of college basketball, the potential first overall pick averaged 19.1 points, 5.2 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.3 steals in 32 games for the Bulldogs.
The 18-year-old guard shot 40.2 % from the field and 29.4 % from beyond the arc during his first season in the SEC. Edwards racked up three games of 30 or more points for the Bulldogs, with his career-high of 37 coming against the highly ranked Michigan State Spartans in the Maui Invitational Tournament.
The freshman is a streaky shooter, drilling six and seven 3-pointers in single games this season, but he did finish the final 10 games of his college career, only shooting 21.9% from long distance.
Anthony Edwards w/quick L–>R crossover between the legs right into shooting motion. Turns hips to left as well on release. This being in his arsenal is lethal. pic.twitter.com/f4K4iz5Ba9
The Atlanta native is valued for his playmaking skills, whether he’s slashing downhill to the basket or trying to open up the floor for his teammates. The young combo guard was the focal point in Athens, yet he only recorded over five assists once in his career. At the next level, his passing numbers could rise. Still, the freshman’s explosive nature will quickly catch the attention of the NBA.
Dominant two-way sequence from Anthony Edwards. Gets the deflection, forces a steal and then the huge windmill dunk pic.twitter.com/Co9gHeYdaQ
At 6-foot-5 225 lbs and only 18-years-old, Edwards would give Steve Kerr a piece of clay to mold into the Warriors core. Whether he’s riding next to Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson in the backcourt or leading the offensive attack for Golden State’s bench unit, Edwards is an exciting name to watch leading up to June.
The Golden State Warriors selected three conference award-winning players in this mock draft: Obi Toppin, Payton Pritchard and Reggie Perry.
The Athletic’s latest mock draft came with a twist: Analyst Sam Vecenie used Tankathon for a draft lottery, and then made selections based on that order.
The Golden State Warriors, after falling to the No. 5 spot despite having the worst record in the league, drafted Dayton forward/center Obi Toppin in the first round.
They took Oregon point guard Payton Pritchard and Mississippi State center Reggie Perry in the second round.
All three players Golden State picked in this mock draft won at least a share of their conference’s player of the year award, and two of them are finalists for Naismith Player of the Year.
Obi Toppin
Toppin averaged 20 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.2 assists with 1.2 blocks and one steal per game to lead Dayton to a 29-2 record, the best in program history.
He shot above 63% from the floor and shot 39% from 3, though it’s worth noting he only attempted 2.6 shots from deep per game.
Toppin was named the Atlantic 10 Player of the Year and is a Naismith finalist.
Vecenie wrote:
His versatility on offense opened up everything for Dayton. His ability to run any action — from a fake dribble handoff into a dribble drive himself, or a short-roll into a pass, or things as simple as a pick-and-pop or a pick-and-roll — opened up everything for what finished as the No. 2 offense in all of college basketball this past season.
And while he’s not an elite defender, he’s good enough and helped Dayton maintain a top-40 defense this year.
The reason such a player is not in Vecenie’s top four is because of question marks about his positioning in the NBA. At 6-foot-9, it’s unclear how well Toppin would be able to play the five when needed.
Golden State is used to such lineups. Additionally, the team would like to compete for another title and Toppin is a player who can play immediately. He’s not a project.
Vecenie did say he expects the Warriors to “potentially” trade the pick, but Toppin “best fits” the team.
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Payton Pritchard
With the No. 48 pick, the Warriors selected another Naismith Player of the Year finalist in Pritchard.
The 22-year-old point guard was named Pac-12 Player of the Year over a handful of names that went above him in this mock draft. In fact, six Pac-12 players were selected in the first round, the highest of which was USC freshman center Onyeka Okongwu at No. 6.
Pritchard led the Pac-12 with 20.5 points and 5.5 assists. He shot 46.5% from the field and 41.5% from deep. His 2.8 made 3-pointers per game was the most in the conference.
But despite his leap as a senior, Pritchard is projected by many to be a backup point guard in the NBA. All six Pac-12 players taken in the first round were freshmen, giving a greater potential for untapped upside.
Vecenie writes,
He’s a terrific pull-up shooter, good distributor and has more shake and wiggle in his game than he gets credit for off the bounce. I think he has a real shot to stick as a backup point guard, as long as he can continue to get enough penetration into the paint.
Pritchard, at 6-foot-2, would fight for the second point guard spot behind Steph Curry if drafted by Golden State.
Reggie Perry
At No. 54, the Warriors got another player who was productive and won a conference award.
Reggie Perry was named the AP’s Co-SEC Player of the Year after averaging 17.4 points and 10.1 rebounds, 3.1 of which were offensive, per game this season, and shot 54% from 2.
He was named MVP of the 2019 U19 World Cup over summer.
From Vecenie:
So why isn’t he higher? There’s a real translation question here for NBA teams. He’s kind of a tweener. A bit too small to be a true center due to his lack of length, and not quite mobile enough on defense against 4s.
At 6-foot-10, the sophomore needs to gain quickness, strength or both to make up for that lack of length.
With Perry production he showed in college, though, Vecenie thinks a smart team could take a chance on him late in the draft and see dividends.
With the NBA schedule on pause and the college basketball season over due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Warriors’ front office, it’s time for Steve Kerr and Bob Myers to turn their attention to the upcoming draft class.
While James Wiseman, LaMelo Ball and Anthony Edwards might lead many mock drafts, the 2020 prospect pool has a bit of mystery to it. With there being no consensus top pick, Golden State scouts in the front office will need to do their homework.
A prospect that is quickly rising up draft boards is USC big man Onyeka Okongwu. The 6-foot-9 freshman was a teammate of the Ball brothers at Chino Hills high school and is now making a name for himself at the Galen Center in Los Angeles.
Could Onyeka fit with Golden State at the top of the draft? Warriors Wire looked at how the Trojan freshman could fit in the Bay Area.
Dayton Flyers sophomore Obi Toppin had arguably the most impressive campaign of any college basketball player during the shortened season.
Dayton Flyers sophomore Obi Toppin had arguably the most impressive campaign of any college basketball player during the shortened season.
Before the year began, Toppin was largely projected as a mid-second round pick in the 2020 NBA draft. The forward is now considered the oddsmakers favorite to win Naismith National Player of the Year on betting sites including Bovada and OddShark.
While the remainder of the season has been canceled to slow the spread of COVID-19 and the coronavirus, the Flyers completed the season with 29 wins and just two losses – though they were undefeated in regulation. Dayton finished as the No. 4 overall team in the country, per KenPom.com.
Toppin, 22, played a critical role in that success and likely cemented his place near the top of the upcoming draft thanks to incredible highlight performances.
According to Adam Zagoria, though he will no longer have an opportunity to improve his draft stock in March Madness, that is exactly what the 6-foot-9 forward plans to do (via Forbes):
Dayton’s Obi Toppin, who is among the leading contenders for national player of the year honors in college basketball, is expected to the enter the NBA Draft, sources said. “He will turn pro,” one source said. “I know many NBA scouts are high on him.” The 6-foot-9 Brooklyn native is projected as the No. 9 pick in the NBA Draft, per ESPN.com, but one league executive called him a “top-5” pick.
The truth is that while Toppin ranked No. 12 overall on the most recent big board for Rookie Wire due to his lack of defensive prowess, circumstances surrounding the college basketball season likely complicate this decision from a scouting perspective.
For example, the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament for the best seniors in college basketball has been canceled. It is also unclear if now other scouting events like the Draft Combine and even individual team workouts will soon suffer a similar fate.
That means as of now, front offices across the league will have to rely only on the sample size that has been given to them thus far in order to make the most informed decision. With that in mind, then, it will be hard to find many players who did more to solidify their draft stock than Toppin.
He averaged 20.0 points, 7.5 rebounds and 1.0 three-pointers per game while shooting 39.0 percent from beyond the arc. His field goal percentage within five feet of the basket (82.7 percent) ranked third-best among all players with at least 100 attempts. The sophomore led the nation with 107 dunks, which is the equivalent of 3.5 per game.
Toppin also led all qualified NCAA players in adjusted box plus-minus, per BartTorvik.com. He averaged 1.19 points per possession, per Synergy Sports Tech, which was the most efficient among the 218 D1 players who finished at least 500 possession in 2019-20.
Warriors are perfect match in first round for NBA prospect Obi Toppin https://t.co/GZPHSKhHsf
One of the teams that may make the most sense for Toppin is the Golden State Warriors, who will likely have a Top 5 pick in the upcoming draft.
Back in December 2019, Connor Letourneau reported that the front office was not infatuated with any of the other prospects currently projected at the top of the 2020 NBA Draft.
He did, however, mention that Toppin would be someone that the Warriors may like (via SF Chronicle):
“One player who could intrigue Golden State is Dayton forward Obi Toppin, who, like Murray State’s Ja Morant last year, has used a torrid start to his sophomore season to emerge as a potential top-5 pick. At 6-foot-9, 220 pounds, Toppin is a strong, versatile big man who can hit open jumpers, throw down highlight-worthy dunks, defend multiple positions and dive for loose balls.”
Considering that he is already 22 years old, there would be less of a learning curve for Toppin than some of the younger prospects who may be available when Golden State is expected to be on the clock.
Toppin could be more of a win-now fit and play as a potential small-ball five in their lethal offense that will be expected to be potent as ever with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson back for a full season in 2020-21.
Speaking of Curry, Obi’s parents Roni Toppin and Obadiah Toppin Sr. were both recent guests on the podcast Raising Fame – hosted by Stephen’s parents Dell Curry and Sonya Curry. Stephen, like Obi, played college basketball in the Atlantic 10 Conference and significantly improved his draft stock in college.
If the Warriors can next add the presumptive NCAA National Player of the Year to their already-impressive core, perhaps Golden State feels less bad about a disappointing 2019-20 campaign. Similarly, while Toppin may miss out on the once-in-a-lifetime experience of March Madness, playing with a generational talent like Curry may help ease the pain.
The reasons why the Dayton Flyers will win the 2020 NCAA Tournament
A lot of March Madness fans are familiar with Dayton college basketball as the host of the midweek play-in games, which it has done every year since 2001. Then, before even the first Cinderella loses a slipper, the tournament is elsewhere, grinding out overlapping games on televisions, laptop screens, tablets and phones. And Dayton is relegated in memory as a pre-bracket before the real bracket.
Enter the 2019-20 Dayton Flyers (29-2) — a well-constructed, talented, versatile basketball team. One that may well put Dayton at the other end of the bracket this year. As the last team in that bracket — as national champion. Below, we lay out the key reasons Dayton will weave its way through the brackets and win the title.
Shooting
Dayton’s 80 points per game lead a talented Atlantic-10 which can boast five top-60 teams. Three of those teams — VCU, St. Louis, Rhode Island — are exceptional defensively. And the Flyers have averaged 76.5 PPG against them. The scoring comes from being the nation’s top shooting team. UD owns an effective field-goal accuracy mark (a shooting measure that equalizes 33.3% on 3-pointers with 50% on 2-pointers) of 59.7%.
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Defense
UD defends well: the Flyers rank 51st in the nation with a 46.6% eFG. Dayton is average in forcing turnovers and well above average in blocking shots. What the Flyers do best is the flip side of their shooting coin: they defend shots. Also notable in Dayton’s shooting and defense thereof is the broad base on both sides. Offensively, UD is proficient in the paint, on mid-range jumpers and on 3s. On defense, the Flyers put a stop sign on the same shot types.
Flexibility
Dayton sports a deep rotation with a near-perfect mix of seniors, juniors, and sophomores … of 6-foot-1, 6-5, 6-7, and 6-9 athletes. It all equates to balance on both sides of the floor and makes for a variety and flexibility that can be tough to match up against.
Star power
When all of the above works in a fluid team environment, all is well. But when that breaks down, it’s nice to have some elite talent on which to lean. Enter 6-9 sophomore forward Obi Toppin, a tremendously athletic go-to player in the running for national player of the year. Toppin is averaging 20 points and 7.5 rebounds per game. He’s shooting 63.3% from the floor and 39% from 3-point-land. Jalen Crutcher, a 6-1 junior guard, is averaging 15.1 points and 4.9 assists per contest. Crutcher is the lead distributor on an unselfish team that passes the ball with purpose and fluidity.
Intangibles
Peripheral analytics reveal a high level, well-coached basketball team that plays well away from home and puts together consistent performances without big peaks and valleys. The Flyers are remarkably efficient on offense, adequately efficient on defense, and above-all-others efficient in establishing, building upon and protecting leads in basketball games.
All of this is what they’re going to want to do six times in a row in the NCAA Tournament.
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We’re less than a week away from Selection Sunday, which means it’s about that time to start paying attention to college basketball again. It’s OK if you haven’t been watching the action since November. We don’t judge.
But obviously, there’s a lot that you’ve missed over the past few months, and with the NCAA Tournament starting in literally less than two weeks, a refresher could be nice, right?
Well, we’re here to help and get you caught up on the college basketball season. Here are some of the hard-hitting college basketball questions that needed to be answered ahead of March Madness.
5. Zion Williamson is gone, and I like dunks. Where can I find dunks?
Sadly, yes, Zion Williamson is gone. But for those dunk enthusiasts out there, college basketball has a couple players who could make deep tournament runs and punish the rim in the process.
Get to know the name Obi Toppin if you haven’t already. The Dayton sophomore is a projected lottery pick in the upcoming NBA Draft, and he has a habit of turning actual games into an impromptu dunk contest. The dude seriously threw down a poster, a reverse dunk and eastbay (between the legs!) on consecutive possessions on Saturday.
While Toppin probably gets the most creative with his in-game dunks, he’s not alone in the 100-dunk club this season. Kansas senior Udoka Azubuike is in a position to break the Division I field-goal percentage record (he’s at 74.6 percent. The record is 74 percent) thanks in large part to his relentless dunking. With a 7-foot, 270-pound frame, Azubuike has been nearly impossible to stop this season because no other team has a body to match up with him.
4. I keep hearing that college basketball is down this year. What happened?
It’s a complicated question with a variety of factors to consider. The first factor should be the early entrants to last year’s NBA Draft. There were 84 underclassmen who declared for the 2019 draft, kept their names in and 44 of those went undrafted. That means that college basketball essentially lost 44 players with pro potential for this season. That’s a staggering loss across the board, and it definitely adds credence to the “college basketball is down” narrative.
The NCAA also hurt itself when it comes to the most talented prospects for an already-weak 2020 draft class. Players like LaMelo Ball and James Wiseman — aside from three games for Wiseman — were not part of this college basketball season due to eligibility issues. And the NCAA seemed unwilling to work with the players to reach a resolution that preserved their eligibility without a lengthy suspension. R.J. Hampton — another potential lottery pick — chose to go to New Zealand over college hoops at Kansas. The probable No. 1 pick Anthony Edwards is on a bad Georgia team. There’s no Trae Young or Zion this season.
When you take all those young stars out of the game, the overall product suffers.
3. What sleeper teams should I keep an eye on?
Glad you asked! It sort of plays into the previous answer. With a “down” year in college basketball, this presents an opportunity for good-but-not-great teams to make a deep tournament run. Non-Power 5 teams like San Diego State, Dayton and Gonzaga are going to compete for possible 1 seeds this year. I wouldn’t call them sleepers, but they definitely aren’t bluebloods.
Without the benefit of seeing matchups and the bracket, Creighton, Butler, Oregon, Virginia and Texas Tech could all make runs at the Final Four in Atlanta.
2. Is Duke any good?
Last year, Duke looked like a dominant team and still lost in the Elite Eight. This year, though, has been a weird season for Duke. The Blue Devils started the season by beating Kansas. They then lost on their homecourt to Stephen F. Austin three weeks later. And in February, Duke lost three of four games — all to unranked teams.
But to answer the question, yes, Duke is good. And I would cap that qualification at “good.”
Vernon Carey Jr. is a great big man. Tre Jones is a very Duke guard. Coach K is still around. Duke could make a deep run, but it could also lose to a bad team and nobody would be surprised.
1. Is there a real favorite to win it all this season?
You’ll probably hear a good deal of pundits say that there are “NO GREAT/DOMINANT TEAMS” this year, and I wouldn’t necessarily go that far. For the past couple months, the Kansas Jayhawks — even in a season of controversy — have played themselves into a Great Team™️ position.
The Jayhawks have won 16 straight games (including a win at then-No. 1 Baylor), went undefeated on the road in Big 12 play and have swept the advanced rankings. Kansas is at the point where it could skip the Big 12 tournament entirely and still get the No. 1 overall seed. It’s already locked up.
We already know that Azubuike presents matchup nightmares for opponents. But Kansas isn’t a one-man team. Sophomore guard Devon Dotson is a Player of the Year candidate. Marcus Garrett is among the best perimeter defenders in the country. Kansas should be considered the favorite.
I’d also argue that Dayton meets the Great Team™️ criteria. So don’t let the talking heads fool you. There’s some great basketball being played at the top of the rankings.
In his first game back from injury, Steph Curry drops highlight-reel dime with his surgically repaired left hand.
It has been 58 games since Stephen Curry suited up in his No. 30 Golden State Warriors uniform. Finally, Thursday night against the Toronto Raptors, that changed.
In Curry’s return to Golden State’s lineup for the first time in four months, all eyes were on his left hand. Since getting injured in late October against the Phoenix Suns, Curry’s hand has gone through two surgeries and a tedious rehab.
Outside of scrimmaging in practice, Curry’s hand has gone through a limited amount of full-contact situations. The two-time Most Valuable Player’s hand was bound to get tested against the Raptors.
The six-time All-Star didn’t waste any time using his surgically repaired hand. Curry whipped a behind the back no-look pass to Andrew Wiggins underneath the basket for an easy layup.
Curry still has a long way to go as he works back from injury over the remaining 20 games on the schedule. Still, his highlight reel pass with his left hand is a positive sign for the future.
