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Of 47 early entrants in 2013 NBA Draft, 20 didn’t make an NBA roster

Grant Jerrett

Arizona’s Grant Jerrett celebrates following a basket against Ohio State during the first half of a West Regional semifinal in the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament, Thursday, March 28, 2013, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

AP

The NBA season kicks off on Tuesday night, which means that you should, by now, have Pro Basketball Talk in your daily rotation of internet reading.

It also means that we can now go back and take a look at some of the players that made good -- and bad -- decisions leaving school to turn professional.

47 players left school with eligibility remaining to put their name into the NBA Draft, with 20 of those 47 failing to make an NBA roster in their first seasons as professionals. Simply getting drafted wasn’t necessarily enough either, as 11 of the 30 second round picks are not on NBA rosters tonight.

These aren’t just Junior College players, either. There are some former all-americans that will be taking their talents overseas or to the D-League. Deshaun Thomas and Lorenzo Brown were both drafted and cut. Myck Kabongo, B.J. Young, C.J. Leslie, Adonis Thomas and Vander Blue went undrafted and couldn’t play their way onto a roster.

That’s just the start of it, before you get to kids like C.J. Aiken or DeWayne Dedmon or Nurideen Lindsay, talented kids that just had no shot of getting drafted.

Perhaps the biggest head scratcher remains Grant Jerrett. A former five-star recruit, Jerrett spent one relatively unproductive season at Arizona, but after seeing head coach Sean Miller recruit over him and bring in Aaron Gordon, Jerrett went pro. The 6-foot-9 shooter was picked 40th but ended up getting cut and heading to the D-League, where he is now a part of Oklahoma City’s system.

It’s not all bad news, however: Seven guys that were not drafted ended up signing a contract with an NBA teams. Those seven:


  • Phil Pressey, Missouri (Boston Celtics)
  • Brandon Davies, BYU (Philadelphia 76ers)
  • Matthew Dellavedova, Saint Mary’s (Cleveland Cavaliers)
  • James Southerland, Syracuse (Charlotte Bobcats)
  • Robert Covington, Tennessee State (Houston Rockets)
  • Ian Clark, Belmont (Utah Jazz)
  • Elias Harris, Gonzaga (Los Angeles Lakers)