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    NBA Draft Preview: 5 Players to Know

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    Wembanyama, the French star, is expected to be the top pick. But prospects like Anthony Black of Arkansas and Iowa’s Kris Murray can help teams, too.The only mystery surrounding the top pick in this year’s N.B.A. draft was resolved a month ago. On May 16, the San Antonio Spurs won the draft lottery, giving them the opportunity — or, perhaps more aptly, the obligation — to select Victor Wembanyama with the first overall pick.Wembanyama, a 7-foot-4 French superstar, is perhaps the most-hyped N.B.A. prospect since LeBron James, and for good reason: He shoots the ball like a modern lead guard and blocks it like a classic paint-patrolling center. Within his eight-foot wingspan, Wembanyama has just about every skill N.B.A. teams seek in a franchise player.“There is no better environment for him than the Spurs,” said Jonathan Givony, a draft analyst for ESPN. He added: “Everyone around him is thrilled for him. I don’t see the Spurs messing this up.”But while Wembanyama, 19, is the draft’s ultimate prize, there are plenty of potentially franchise-altering prospects throughout the lottery — the celebrated top 14 picks — and even into the second round.“There are tiers to this draft,” Givony said. “Victor is in a tier of his own. Then it’s Brandon Miller and Scoot Henderson after that. And from there, it really opens up.”Miller, a forward from Alabama, and Henderson, a guard from the N.B.A. G League’s Ignite, are expected to be drafted within the first few picks.Here are five other players to know in the 2023 N.B.A. draft.Basketball is Anthony Black’s first love, but his first scholarship offers came from football teams.Nelson Chenault/USA Today Sports, via ReutersAnthony Black6-6, 210 pounds, guard, ArkansasAnthony Black’s first college scholarship offers came from football teams. As a sophomore wide receiver for Coppell High School in Texas, Black hauled in 39 passes for 762 yards and eight touchdowns. His play got the attention of powerhouse programs like Arkansas, Baylor and Cincinnati. But basketball was his first love.“No doubt I would have made it to the N.F.L. if I would have focused on football,” Black, 19, said. “I was pretty raw with it. I didn’t get to reach my potential. Once I started getting basketball offers during my sophomore year, that became my focus.”Black was born into an athletic family: His mother was a scholarship athlete at Baylor in soccer; his father, in basketball. But they never pushed him to become a Bear, which is how he wound up at Arkansas, where he averaged 12.8 points, 5.1 rebounds and 3.9 assists in one season. He became a more confident and reliable shooter as the season wore on, but the reason he’s projected as a potential top-10 pick is his defense. He puts great pressure on the ball and can even defend big men because of his strength and size.“Defense is what I’ve always hung my hat on,” Black said. “I was always the best defender on the team, or in the league or in my area. I sometimes haven’t been aggressive enough on offense so that I could be more active on defense. To me, getting scored on is pretty embarrassing.”Jordan Hawkins helped guide the Huskies to their fifth basketball title.Soobum Im/Getty ImagesJordan Hawkins6-4, 186 pounds, guard, ConnecticutDuring the 2022 N.C.A.A. Division I men’s basketball tournament, Jordan Hawkins watched from the sideline as New Mexico State, a 12th seed, upset his fifth-seeded Connecticut Huskies in the round of 64. In the postgame locker room, Hawkins told Coach Dan Hurley, “This will not happen again next year.”He spent the summer getting basketball advice from UConn alumni and N.B.A. greats like Richard Hamilton and Ray Allen. He also prioritized his mental strength, beginning a daily meditation practice with the Calm app. All that work paid off. After posting one of his worst performances of the season — 5 points on 11 shots — in UConn’s second-round loss to Marquette in the Big East tournament, Hawkins pledged to play better during the N.C.A.A. tournament.“The best players show up in March,” Hawkins, 21, said. “I wanted to prove that I was one of the best players at my position — and of the best players, period, in the country.”In the N.C.A.A. tournament, Hawkins was named the most outstanding player in the West Regional after averaging 22 points per game and sinking nine total 3-pointers against Arkansas and Gonzaga. (He shot 38.8 percent from 3 for the season.)Before the team’s Final Four matchup against Miami, Hawkins contracted a stomach bug. He threw up more than a dozen times before the game and almost passed out during the first half. But he remembered the promise he had made to his coach. He helped guide the Huskies to their fifth basketball title.“That’s what I’m bringing with me to the N.B.A.,” he said. “I have the confidence that I’m a great defender, and I believe that I’m the best shooter in the draft. But more than that, I know how to buy into my role and work hard and win championships.”GG Jackson has a combination of size and skill that’s hard to find.L.G. Patterson/Associated PressGG Jackson6-8, 214 pounds, forward, South CarolinaIn a seven-month stretch last year, GG Jackson became the No. 1 player in the class of 2023, committed to North Carolina, decommitted from North Carolina, reclassified to the class of 2022 and committed to South Carolina. It was a tumultuous time for a player who had yet to turn 18, but by the start of the college basketball season, Jackson believed he had made the right decision.“The coaches told me I had the power to uplift a lot of people in my home state by staying in South Carolina,” he said. “Plus, staying so close to home made my mom happy.”Jackson posted a respectable 15.4 points per game this season, but he made just 38.4 percent of his shots. He also publicly criticized his coaches on Instagram Live after a loss to Arkansas in February. Jackson apologized, and he said he owned up to the outburst during meetings with N.B.A. teams. Although he’s not projected to be a top-10 pick, he has a combination of size and skill that is hard to find and that could persuade a team to select him in the first round.“I remember where I came from in basketball,” Jackson said. “I was a frail kid who had to wear goggles. I got to that No. 1 spot, but now I’m starting back over. I’m not the bad guy that people perceive me to be. I’m serious about the player and person I want to become.”Kris Murray averaged 20.2 points per game last season at Iowa.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesKris Murray6-8, 213 pounds, forward, IowaWhile Keegan Murray matriculated to the N.B.A. last June, his twin brother, Kris, decided to stay at Iowa for another season. When the Hawkeyes came together for a workout a few weeks later, Kris came to a realization: This would be the first practice without his brother.“I knew I could be an N.B.A. player eventually, but going back to college gave me the chance to make a name for myself,” Murray, 22, said. “Basketball-wise, I got to be the focal point of our team. I got to lead our team, to be on top of the scouting reports for other teams, to be the guy everyone’s trying to stop. That was an invaluable experience for me.”It was also a successful experience. Murray doubled his points and his minutes over the previous season but maintained his field-goal percentage and improved as a passer and rebounder. His 20.2 points per game were slightly behind Keegan’s 23.5 the season prior.“He gives me crap, and I give him crap,” Kris said, referring to his brother. “But we really like to gang up on our dad.”Their father, Kenyon Murray, averaged a mere 9.9 points per game during his four-year run with the Hawkeyes in the mid-1990s.In April, Kris watched Keegan start for the Sacramento Kings in a first-round playoff game win over the Golden State Warriors. And in May, the brothers got to spend a week together training and preparing for the next N.B.A. season.“I feel like my player comparison in the draft is pretty obvious,” Kris said. “It might be a little bit lazy, but it’s pretty accurate.”Rayan Rupert’s (left) goal is to be one of the best players in the league.Emily Barker/Getty ImagesRayan Rupert6-6, 193 pounds, forward, FranceRayan Rupert, 19, was born into one of the best basketball families in France: His father, Thierry, was a former captain of the French national team; his sister, Iliana, won a W.N.B.A. championship last summer with the Las Vegas Aces. Thierry died when Rayan was 8, but he instilled in his children a love for the game that he had dedicated his life to.“For me and my sister, it’s important to represent the Rupert name,” Rayan said. “I’m very proud of my father. At the same time, I want to have my own career. I want people to know me not only as the son of Thierry, but also as Rayan.”After playing at the prestigious French academy INSEP for four years, Rupert signed with the New Zealand Breakers as part of the N.B.L.’s Next Stars development program. He was following in the footsteps of his best friend, Ousmane Dieng, who went from INSEP to the Breakers to the Oklahoma City Thunder as the 11th overall pick in last year’s N.B.A. draft.He’s part of a movement of French players who have turned into first-round N.B.A. draft prospects, and he has known Wembanyama since he was 12. But for now, he’s more concerned with making a name for himself.“I’m very happy for Victor and for all the French players in this class,” he said. “But my goal is to be one of the best players in this league. That’s my only focus.” More

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      Chelsea Dungee Was Ready for Her W.N.B.A. (and Yacht?) Moment

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      Dungee, a guard from the University of Arkansas, was drafted fifth overall by the Dallas Wings after a whirlwind few days (that’s the yacht) and a lifetime in the gym.Chelsea Dungee was flying on Thursday, the day of the W.N.B.A. draft. She wasn’t on the court, where the ambidextrous guard is used to getting airtime on both sides of the basket. She was getting on a plane, returning to Fayetteville, Ark. She was also euphoric.“I don’t even know how to describe it,” Dungee said in a telephone interview during her layover in Atlanta. “I worked my entire life for today.”The 23-year-old star Arkansas guard was returning from Florida, where she had posed for her first photo shoot as one of the female athletes endorsed by Nike’s Jordan Brand. The shoot required Dungee to sip champagne on a yacht with an assortment of her soon-to-be-peers, W.N.B.A. players like Kia Nurse and Crystal Dangerfield, who won the Rookie of the Year Award last season. The Instagram chronicles of the glamorous evening became Dungee’s de facto announcement of her first endorsement.WNBA Prospect Chelsea Dungee is currently hanging out with Te’a Cooper (Sparks), Aerial Powers (Lynx), Jordin Canada (Storm), Dearica Hamby (Aces), Crystal Dangerfield (Lynx), and Kia Nurse (Mercury) on a boat. 👀 #WNBA pic.twitter.com/4Xa7HngE6X— Women’s Hoopz (@WomensHoopz) April 15, 2021
      From there, she was heading to her own draft party to celebrate making it to the league — and being a first-round draft choice, if the mock draft consensus held up. It made sense that she was so excited that she’d forgotten to eat breakfast. What she didn’t realize, though, was just how much better her day was going to get.Dungee was one of the players for whom the draft’s unpredictability meant good news, instead of a long, painful wait to hear her name called. She was the fifth overall pick, going higher than expected to the Dallas Wings — a squad full of compelling young stars that happens to be the closest W.N.B.A. team to both Dungee’s hometown Okmulgee, Okla., and her school, the University of Arkansas.“My mom has never missed a home game,” Dungee told reporters after celebrating her pick. “I’m only about three-and-a-half hours from her and about five from Arkansas, so it couldn’t be a better situation.”Her mother, Chi Dungee, a social worker, raised her alone in their tiny town of less than 12,000. Chi played basketball and softball in high school, and introduced Chelsea to sports.“We lived in the country,” Chi said as she sat with her daughter in the Arkansas athletics conference room where they, the women’s basketball coaches, Chelsea’s teammates and a few fans would watch the draft. “We had the outdoor hoop that was just old school. It was a 10-foot pipe with a basket welded to it, and you played on dirt.”The W.N.B.A., now heading into its 25th season, was new when Chelsea was learning the game, but she can’t recall a time when she didn’t want to make it to the league. Unlike so many of her predecessors, Dungee is younger than the league itself. It was nearby, too: The Detroit Shock became the Tulsa Shock when she was in middle school. Now, they’re the Dallas Wings.Dungee’s ability was evident early. An Oklahoma journalist at her draft night news conference, for example, recalled covering her when she was just 14 years old. Though that meant Chi had to take her to more and more games and tournaments, the mother said she found comfort in the grind of parenting a high-level athlete. “From this month to this month, you’re going to see these people, your kids are going to compete,” Chi said. “There was a lot of support system in that.”Dungee was the Southeastern Conference’s leading scorer last season, averaging more than 20 points per game.Dawson Powers/USA Today Sports, via ReutersShe beamed at her daughter as she spoke of all the work it took for both of them to get to this place, clad in television-ready outfits picked a few days before while waiting to hear life-changing, history-shaping news. “Whatever we decided to do, we did together — and we were all in, I mean 100 percent,” Chi said, her voice shaking slightly. “Here we are, again.”Chelsea Dungee is now preparing to meet a whole new group of teammates, and spent much of her time on set with her Jordan Brand colleagues asking them about life in the league. “Like, what’s training camp look like? What’s housing look like? What’s traveling look like?” Dungee said of the questions she asked some of the W.N.B.A. veterans. “Just getting a lot of knowledge from them, and asking about what to expect.”It was only right that she watched the draft at Arkansas, next to the gym where she spent so many hours trying to make sure that she would have her draft moment. Dungee’s mother and her Arkansas coach, Mike Neighbors, were by her side. Neighbors kept track of all 12 team hats the W.N.B.A. sent her, so that the right one would be handy for Dungee to put on as soon as she got picked. The three of them watched the broadcast quietly, until Dungee’s name was called. Neighbors handed her the Wings hat, Dungee hugged her mother, and then she did her national television interview.“I was surprised,” she said afterward. “I don’t think anyone would have thought that, coming from a small town, I’d be the fifth pick.”She went around the room, taking selfies with the teammates, coaches and fans. Arkansas, where she transferred after spending her freshman year at Oklahoma, was where she found her identity — a relentless shooter whose offensive creativity made her the leading scorer in the Southeastern Conference in the 2020-21 season, averaging 22.3 points per game. Then there’s her razor-sharp crossover, the move that she hopes will become her W.N.B.A. signature.“I think this system has absolutely been great for me,” Dungee said of Neighbors’ program. “It’s fast paced, there’s a lot of pick-and-rolls, a lot of screening actions, and you see that a lot in the W.N.B.A.”The draft night party served as a more fitting conclusion to her time with the Razorbacks than their last game, in which Arkansas became the seventh No. 4 seed ever to be upset by a No. 13 seed in the first round of the N.C.A.A. women’s tournament. “It was disappointing,” Dungee said. “I had to come to terms with that, let it go and move on.”The coaching she received at Arkansas, and the community that was as willing to encourage her to shoot her shot as it was supportive of her on draft night, may have helped raise her draft stock. Before the draft, Chicago Sky Coach James Wade said that both she and her Arkansas teammate Destiny Slocum had “progressed a lot in their maturity and the way they approach the game, playing for a coach that gives them a lot of freedom and that plays a W.N.B.A. style.” Slocum was drafted in the second round by the Las Vegas Aces.After seemingly endless rounds of interviews on Thursday, Dungee finally had time to digest her wild 24 hours. “My dream actually just came true,” Dungee said. “I’m still in shock.” She pledged that she would be back in the gym the next day, getting ready for training camp on April 25, and hopefully her first W.N.B.A. season on May 15.“This is a celebration,” she added, not ruling out the possibility of having a little more champagne. “Afterwards, I’ll have my mind right and be ready to work.” More