Scouts say Karl Towns and Trey Lyles were the best NBA prospects at UK's combine

Roughly 90 NBA scouts and personnel watched the Cats practice over the weekend. In addition to the televised combine Friday afternoon, the scouts were treated to two more full practices on Saturday, and by all accounts, they left impressed; however, whom they were most impressed with might surprise you. Yesterday, Evan Daniels tweeted that one of the scouts at the combine said that Karl Towns and Trey Lyles are UK’s best pro prospects. Karl being at the top isn’t surprising; several scouts think he’s UK’s best longterm pro prospect, and after an impressive performance this weekend, ESPN’s Chad Ford says Towns looks like a potential #1 pick:

Of the scouts and GMs I spoke with, all of them agree that Towns is the best NBA prospect on the team. “He’s huge and so skilled,” one GM said. “I think he’s got a chance to be a more mature version of DeMarcus Cousins.”

But Lyles, who, until now, had been sidelined by a mysterious leg injury, looking like a better pro prospect than Willie Cauley-Stein or Dakari Johnson? Wow. Adam Himmelsbach also spoke with a scout who also ranked Karl Towns and Trey Lyles as the best and second best pro prospects on the team, followed by Willie Cauley-Stein. What makes Lyles so intriguing? At 6’10”, he’s pretty big for a forward, and has a very versatile skill set. Here’s what Seth Greenberg had to say about Lyles at the Combine:

This was my first chance to see Lyles over an extended period of time, and I came away very impressed. He is a 6-10 skilled forward with toughness. He can play on the block but was very impressive facing. He shoots the ball comfortably to 17 feet. Lyles did a nice job of running the floor and getting himself on balance. There is a physicality to him that is impressive. Coming off a leg injury that held him out of Kentucky’s trip to the Bahamas, the Wildcats training staff told me they feel he is playing at about 70 percent of his capacity. He has an NBA power forward’s game.

Check out ESPN Insider for more of Greenberg and Ford’s feedback on the event.