Official: Caleb Swanigan Leaves Purdue Boilermakers for NBA Draft; as Expected

It’s official, via a release sent out by the school, Caleb Swanigan will not be returning to Purdue, and instead remains in the NBA Draft. This move by Biggie was expected, but it didn’t get announced until the final decision day, and at time that was about as late as possible. Caleb Swanigan himself broke the news via his Twitter account.

Reads a statement attributed to Purdue Head Coach Matt Painter:

“We are also happy that Caleb will be able to achieve his goal of getting drafted by an NBA franchise. He has set forth on this path for a long time and we are thrilled that he will be able to realize his dream. We wish him the best of luck as he moves forward in the process.”

Never thought I'd be sad to say that I am going to chase my reality in the NBA. Y'all got my love forever. #boilerup

— Mamba Forever (@calebswanigan50) May 24, 2017

Moving on to some Caleb Swanigan NBA Draft analysis.

ESPN has recently slashed a lot of their top tier talent, and the cuts hit the college basketball department especially hard.

However, two guys who did actually survive the massive purge are Analyst/International expert Fran Fraschilla and reporter Jeff Goodman who answered questions to preview the 2017 NBA Draft this week.

You can read the entire transcript of their media conference call at this link.

Both were asked to assess the NBA Draft prospects of Caleb Swanigan and this is what Goodman had to say (Fraschilla analysis and feedback over at this link).

Goodman believes that now is the time for Caleb Swanigan to come out of college for good and enter the NBA Draft.

Jeff Goodman: “The NBA guys that I talked to all pretty much said Swanigan should just come out now, he hasn’t officially signed, but he’s also got Roosevelt Barnes as his guardian, adopted father, who’s a football agent, so my guess is he’s just handling the process the intelligent way, which is, what’s the benefit of putting it out there that he’s already signed, if he gets hurt or has a change of heart.

“But I think the odds are he probably leaves, from everything I’m hearing, and most NBA guys feel like he’s not really going to improve on the year he had last year. How do you do better than that? Now, again, the only benefit would be next year’s draft is a little bit weaker, but this year’s draft isn’t loaded with bigs.”

“Can Swanigan sneak into the end of the first round?

“Maybe. I think, again, the range for him is probably 25 to 40-45.”

Goodman was also asked about the decision Caleb Swanigan made not to go through the competition at the scouting combine this past week and if that was indeed the right call.

GOODMAN: “Listen, bigs are scared of a combine, because they’re scared of not getting the ball. And if you’re Caleb Swanigan, you’ve proven at the college level pretty much everything that you needed to prove.”

“So for him, I actually think the testing is more important.”

“I don’t know if you agree with that, but he’s lost so much weight in his life, gotten in great shape, people know his deficiencies and his strengths against college players. That’s not going to be the issue.

“I don’t know how much it would help him even dominating against the group that’s going to be out there, because if he does, people are going to still say, well, he should dominate against those guys.”

Go here to see where we have Biggie Swanigan in our NBA mock draft. Vaya con dios Biggie.

Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes to WGN CLTV and KOZN.