Mid-Major Madness Twitter mailbag: NBA Draft edition

By the end of this week, the NBA Draft will have come and gone, and the college basketball world will officially be able to put last year in the rearview mirror. After that, we will be able to get back to our regularly scheduled programming of ranking your team too low and not giving them nearly enough attention.

Until then, however, let’s talk about the draft. The NBA Draft is one of my personal favorite events of the year, and I love talking about prospects, trading assets, things of that nature. So what better way to talk about the draft than to engage with our loyal followers with another Twitter mailbag?

Before we get into the mailbag, a few things to take note of:

On Thursday, we (me) plan on doing either a Periscope or Facebook Live before the draft for any last minute questions and discussion, so stay on the look out for that. We’ll also have have coverage on any mid-major prospects that get picked, and analysis in the following days. So keep an eye out for draft night coverage. It’ll be fun, I promise.

Let’s start with a fun one.

We kind of discussed this in our Slack chat a while ago. It sparked a discussion on if we, as devoted college basketball writers, should actually be able to play basketball. Anyways, I don’t think we ever came to the conclusion of who the best player on our staff is. In that case, Andy Evans, our Horizon League and MAC writer, would be probably get picked first because he’s like 6’6”. It definitely wouldn’t be Russ. He’s short.

Cal will also not be drafted.

Alec Peters would be a great fit on the Bulls, and I actually had him going there in our first mock draft. He’s an interesting case because he hasn’t really been able to do too much in terms of workouts because of his foot injury. Trying to project the second round of the draft is such a crapshoot, but I think we’ll see Peters go anywhere between picks 35-45. I’d love for him to land on the Rockets so that he could just go out and bomb threes.

Cooke hasn’t generated much buzz in terms of being drafted, but he will definitely get a shot in the Summer League. He’s a guy that I could see landing a training camp invite too by just being a guy that helps you win. He has good size for a wing, and can hit open shots and score a little bit. It’s a longshot, but it’s not out of the picture.

Finally somebody is asking questions about noted mid-major powerhouse Kentucky. To answer the question, no. Markelle Fultz is the best guard and player in this class, and I think there’s a decent gap between him and the rest of the prospects. I do think Fox is the second best guard, and maybe even second best prospect overall. If he ever gets his jumper figured out, he’s going to a be a problem.

THE OFFICIAL CHRIS SCHUTTE SCOUTING REPORT:

• Plays three-point line to three-point line
• Respectable jumper, can get hot on occasions
• No interest in defense whatsoever
• Not very tall, but has good wingspan for height
• Can provide elite bench celebrations

Antonius Cleveland is going to be another guy that will likely depend on getting a summer league invite. Which, as I wrote the other day, is fine! He’s an interesting prospect in that he has a lot of the things NBA teams look for in a shooting guard: he has great size and athleticism, he has potential on defense, and he can get to the rim. But as far as getting drafted, it’s highly unlikely.

That’s a weird way of spelling hot dog.