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The NBA Draft is July 29, with the Draft Lottery set to be held on June 22. The Draft Combine will take place June 21-27. Welcome to our first 2021 NBA mock draft, team needs have not been taken into account at this time.
Some player descriptions have been filled out, but the others will be completed at a later date.
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Team USA men’s basketball has just announced their roster for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics and it is pretty much what you expected. With Lebron James focusing on plugging Space Jam instead, the USA will be led by Kevin Durant instead. Without a doubt, the odds are with the red, white and blue to continue their dominance in this competition. America will be heavy favorites.
Although Devin Booker of the Phoenix Suns is another stud who will be a part of the American all-star team. In addition to Devin Booker, the Stars and Stripes will include another former Kentucky Wildcat, Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat. Full roster is below:
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Typically, the NBA Draft is a commencement ceremony for Big Blue Nation, but this year’s edition will not be Kentucky Wildcats heavy. On opening night of the 2019-20 season, the University of Kentucky led the nation with 29 former players present on NBA rosters.
That same day, the University sent out a press release stating that players coached by John Calipari in Lexington have inked in total, more than $1.9 billion in NBA contracts. That’s more than the GDP of the nation of Belize, if you’re scoring at home, by the way. I guess Belize better start working on their jump shot.
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Photo by Chet White | UK Athletics
If 2020-21 has taught us anything, it’s that life is short and it is very precious. Living under a once-in-a-century plague, the news inundates us with daily death tolls. And this is on top of the countless other ways that tragedy can strike, at any moment.
Boston native and Kentucky Wildcats NBA Draft prospect Terrenence Clarke had everything going for him, and it was all still in front of him. “Taken too soon, or “way before his time” is an extreme understatement for this situation. It’s brutally beyond unfair that his time had to come while he was still so young.
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9-16, 8-9 in league For the first time since 2013, and just the third since 1991, the Kentucky Wildcats missed the NCAA Tournament. With a record of 9-16 (8-9 in the SEC) it was a season to forget in Lexington, and the kind of campaign that almost never, ever happens to Big Blue.
Kentucky leads everybody in total NCAA tournament appearances (59), NCAA tournament wins (131), NCAA Tournament games played (184), NCAA Sweet Sixteen appearances (45), NCAA Elite Eight appearances (38), total postseason tournament appearances (68), and conference regular season champions (51, 49 in the Southeastern Conference). So they’ll be back, and soon, but with a very different look.
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Dave Leitao at DePaul 2.0 was mostly a system malfunction, as it was overall much less successful and effective than the inaugural edition. The high point of his second tenure leading the DePaul Blue Demons was a deep run in the CBI a couple year ago.
And yes the words “high point” and “CBI” do not actually go together, at all. With Jean Lenti-Ponsetto finally gone, there is actual hope now that DPU could get the men’s basketball coaching hire correct. Under JLP, DPU was a total laughingstock, and there wasn’t ever going to be much hope of escaping that. However, DeWayne Peevy, who took over the A.D. job in April, is on the ball, and he’ll get things done.
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When the college basketball season began, the Illinois Fighting Illini and Kentucky Wildcats were both receiving favorable odds when it came to the NCAA Tournament. Rated quite high in the preseason polls, the March Madness prospects for both UK and the Illini were looking quite promising.
When the season began, Kentucky had the sixth most favorable national title odds at around 13/1 or (+1300). The Wildcats Final Four odds were even better in late November, only three teams (Gonzaga, Villanova and Baylor) were backed better to reach the final weekend of March Madness.
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Heading into the Georgia Tech game on Dec. 6, Kentucky Wildcats coach John Calipari met the media, via Zoom as we always do in 2020, and he provided a very spirited question and answer session. During several stretches of the press conference, he sounded similar to the professional football coach character portrayed by Al Pacino in the 1999 film “Any Given Sunday.”
“If you’re LAST in the gym, NO ONE follow you,” Calipari said quite loudly. “If you’re FIRST to practice, EVERYONE will follow you.” The literal statement also served on a metaphorical level, but apparently, his team still didn’t get fired up enough.
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Ten is the most relevant number to Kentucky Wildcats basketball right now as it’s both their ranking in the AP preseason poll, and the number of new players coming into the squad this season. The John Calipari era at Kentucky has been all about annual roster turnover, and churning is standard here, but this is next level.
How will it all play out in Lexington? What does the sports betting community think of their chances and their odds this upcoming season? Well, it’s the bluest of the blue blood programs, but they’re not the favorites in 2020-21.
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John Calipari has instilled a sense of “La Familia” in his Kentucky Wildcats program, and all the former UK players that strive and thrive in the NBA. Yes, Calipari’s La Familia may just be the most Italian sounding sentence we’ve ever published here on The Sports Bank.
Writing this article puts me in the mood to pour chianti and consume caprese, with Pavarotti playing in the background of course. Because after all this is a major La Familia, The Family in Italian (ditto en Espanol) evening on the calendar- NBA Draft night.
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The NBA Draft is now scheduled for November 18. The order is almost set. If you’re into mock drafts, then you have come to the right place. If you’re into NBA betting, then this link is certainly the place for you. Here is the link to our final MLB mock draft, the NHL mock can be found at this link and the 2021 NFL mock draft is available at this link.
As far as we know, we’re the only mom and pop shop, independently owned media outlet that produces a mock draft for all four sports.
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In a media zoom call scheduled specifically for a discussion on the hiring of Bruiser Flint as a new Assistant Coach, John Calipari covered a vast array of topics. The University of Kentucky head coach was asked about:
COVID-19, the chances of having a season amidst it, backlash for his tweet about getting getting his team registered to vote, the on-campus conversation about potentially re-naming Rupp Arena, former UK Associate Athletic Director DeWayne Peevy taking the A.D. job at DePaul, a potential series with the Blue Demons) and what his thoughts would be if his players wanted to stage a protest against social injustice.
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