Tennessee Basketball’s Grant Williams Decides to Stay in Draft

University of Tennessee forward Grant Williams announced Friday his decision to forgo his senior season, and stay in the NBA Draft.

Coming off a stellar Volunteer Basketball Season, Williams played a major part for 2018-2019. The 6’7 junior averaged 18.8 points per game, 7.2 rebounds, and a field goal rate of 56.5%.

Williams announced in April that he intended to “test the waters” of the NBA draft, along with team mate Jordan Bone. The deadline for underclassmen to decide to stay in the draft isn’t until May 29, but earlier in the week, Williams stated he would have a decision made by Saturday.

Williams actually received his degree this week, but still had one more year of collegiate eligibility. 2019 provided many accolades for the junior, including 2 SEC Player of the Year awards in a row.

Most predictions have Williams as a late first round pick, but he still has around 2 months to improve his stock.

Team mate Jordan Bone, who is also a junior, has decided to wait until the May 29 deadline to make his announcement, but has been turning heads at the NBA Combine himself.

The loss of Williams, along with graduations of Admiral Scholfield and Kyle Alexander, added with the potential (and more than likely) loss of Jordan Bone, has many of the Volunteer faithful nervous. Not all hope is lost though, as Lamante Turner and Jordan Bowden both showed significant improvement late in the season.

The NBA Draft is set to take place June 20. The order of the first 14 picks has yet to be decided.