NBA Draft: Does Michigan's Kobe Bufkin have a promise? He could 'shake things up on draft night'
Michigan Wolverines basketball guard Kobe Bufkin was a projected late-first-round pick early on in the pre-NBA Draft process, but he’s been one of the biggest risers to where he’s now a potential lottery selection (top 14).
Bufkin, who will be in the green room for next week’s event, has been hard to reach lately, after going through measurements but not participating in drills at last month’s NBA Combine. Now, there’s speculation that he may already know where he’s going — and that he could be a surprise high draft pick.
“One player that every team is studying right now is Kobe Bufkin,” ESPN draft analyst Jonathan Givony said on ‘NBA Today.’ “He has really helped himself in this pre-draft process, just by not being available. Everybody is trying to get him in their gym, trying to get him in for workouts and trying to interview him and trying to get his medical. He has made himself sparse.
“Teams are starting to speculate, ‘Does Kobe Bufkin have a promise? Does he know where he’s going to be drafted already?’
“There’s a lot of speculation about Washington at eight, Utah at nine, Oklahoma City at 12 and, probably worse case, Toronto at 13. He has positioned himself very well in this process.”
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The Grand Rapids, Mich., native was a standout all of last season for Michigan, but he really came into his own beginning in February, starting with a 15-point, 12-rebound and 8-assist outing in a win at Northwestern (Feb. 2). From that game to the rest of the season, he averaged 17.4 points, 6.1 rebounds and 3.3 assists per contest.
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“Teams are looking at his body of work the last 10 or 12 games of last season where he really excelled at Michigan, and he has a chance to really shake things up on draft night,” Givony continued.
Givony and fellow ESPN draft analyst Jeremy Woo have placed Bufkin at No. 12 to the Oklahoma City Thunder in their latest mock draft, released June 14.
“Bufkin has quietly gathered a good deal of interest in the pre-draft process and is being extremely selective where he works out, with a lottery selection potentially on the horizon,” Woo wrote of the 6-4, 186-pound Michigan product. “The Thunder have plenty of young guards and can go in a number of directions at No. 12, but Oklahoma City rarely hesitates to grab the best talent on the board, and Bufkin has built a strong case to be the first player drafted among a large group of guards jockeying for position.
“He’s a name to watch over the next week, with room to potentially rise higher. Washington and Utah appear to be candidates to select guards at No. 8 and No. 9.”
Stay tuned at TheWolverine.com for more NBA Draft coverage in the days ahead, before the June 22 event in Brooklyn.
