Shaedon Sharpe - Kentucky

[Duke4life831]

Calling it now.

Since Sharpe has now declared for the draft but is maintaining his eligibility. This is what's going to happen.

No doubt he stays in the draft, I don't think anyone doubts that at this point. But this is how Cal is going to sell it. This will be Cal's statement.

"He was planning on returning next year and wanted to go through the draft process to learn what he needed to work on. But while going through the draft process he was told about how high he could go. He really wanted to play for UK next year, but both his family and I agreed he shouldn't pass up this opportunity to fulfill his dream of playing in the NBA. It's been an honor just to have him be apart of big blue nation and from here on out he will have big blue nation supporting him!"

Calling it right now, that will be almost word for word what Cal will say. All with the hope that some UK fans will buy it and not realize this was the plan for the beginning haha.

He has?

Read on Twitter

247 came out yesterday saying he is declaring and will maintain his eligibility and the official statement will come out later this week.

247 is as legit of a source as it comes when it comes to high school recruits and college guys.

[Hal14]

Calling it now.

Since Sharpe has now declared for the draft but is maintaining his eligibility. This is what's going to happen.

No doubt he stays in the draft, I don't think anyone doubts that at this point. But this is how Cal is going to sell it. This will be Cal's statement.

"He was planning on returning next year and wanted to go through the draft process to learn what he needed to work on. But while going through the draft process he was told about how high he could go. He really wanted to play for UK next year, but both his family and I agreed he shouldn't pass up this opportunity to fulfill his dream of playing in the NBA. It's been an honor just to have him be apart of big blue nation and from here on out he will have big blue nation supporting him!"

Calling it right now, that will be almost word for word what Cal will say. All with the hope that some UK fans will buy it and not realize this was the plan for the beginning haha.

He has?

Read on Twitter

247 came out yesterday saying he is declaring and will maintain his eligibility and the official statement will come out later this week.

247 is as legit of a source as it comes when it comes to high school recruits and college guys.

This tweet says Sharpe is expected to announce.....it doesn't say that he did announce.. Branham says "announcement could come later this afternoon..

Read on Twitter

Based on Adam Zagoria's tweet a few hours after Travis Branham's tweet, it sounds like Branham jumped the gun.

Branham = unverified twitter account with 10K followers
Zagoria = verified twitter account with 61K followers

[Duke4life831]

He has?

Read on Twitter

247 came out yesterday saying he is declaring and will maintain his eligibility and the official statement will come out later this week.

247 is as legit of a source as it comes when it comes to high school recruits and college guys.

This tweet says Sharpe is expected to announce.....it doesn't say that he did announce.. Branham says "announcement could come later this afternoon..

Read on Twitter

Based on Adam Zagoria's tweet a few hours after Travis Branham's tweet, it sounds like Branham jumped the gun.

Branham = unverified twitter account with 10K followers
Zagoria = verified twitter account with 61K followers

Branham is an insider with 247. Again as solid of a source as it comes for high school and college guys. They're not just putting random BS out there to put it out there. UK insiders on UK boards aren't denying this report either.

But I really don't care to be honest, if y'all want to hold off on Sharpe (declaring) for a couple days, go for it haha. A 247 report is good enough for me.

[RookieStar]

C'mon guys.. did anyone really expect Sharpe to stay at UK for 1 season when he is a top-10 lock?

That's the same feeling I got when I heard talks that Zion was considering another season at Duke because of "unfinished business" or "loved college" or whatever. Both got me "meh"

[Justwar]

247 came out yesterday saying he is declaring and will maintain his eligibility and the official statement will come out later this week.

247 is as legit of a source as it comes when it comes to high school recruits and college guys.

This tweet says Sharpe is expected to announce.....it doesn't say that he did announce.. Branham says "announcement could come later this afternoon..

Read on Twitter

Based on Adam Zagoria's tweet a few hours after Travis Branham's tweet, it sounds like Branham jumped the gun.

Branham = unverified twitter account with 10K followers
Zagoria = verified twitter account with 61K followers

Branham is an insider with 247. Again as solid of a source as it comes for high school and college guys. They're not just putting random BS out there to put it out there. UK insiders on UK boards aren't denying this report either.

But I really don't care to be honest, if y'all want to hold off on Sharpe (declaring) for a couple days, go for it haha. A 247 report is good enough for me.

This is really from Givony. He's helped some people play cal in the background over Sharpe. I do think it's a very solid chance that Sharpe is NOT eligible for the draft.

[niQ]

Read on Twitter

[Duke4life831]

Shocked by the news...

[tmorgan]

Lol at all this drama. It was obvious.

side note: if my Pistons luck out again, and it appears the three bigs are going 1-2-3 in any order, my personal preference is to pick 4th and take Sharpe. That includes trading down if above 3 and trading up if below. He’s special.

[GSWFan1994]

Biggest unknown of the past few years.

High bust potential.

I've still not made my mind on him, need to see more, but I confess I'm not seeing anything that makes me go "wow".

[Roger Murdock]

First guard since Murray to not get his stock tanked by Cal and his method is ‘not playing’

Love it

[CptCrunch]

Anyone can find Sharpe's full stats from? 2021 Nike EYBL. Specifically the FT? He shot 6 for 10 in 2019 playing for Canada.

Back translating his Nike EYBL numbers 21.6/5.3/2.6 into round numbers by multiplying by game counts, the best fits are over 10, 13 or 20 games. How many games were played?

There is little film of him on Youtube aside from beating on really bad high school kids. Nike EYBL exploded his draft stock, but no full game videos seem to exist? There is a full game highlight against Meanstreets on Youtube recorded by some guy on his cellphone?

Watch on YouTube

[SeattleJazzFan]

Biggest unknown of the past few years.

High bust potential.

I've still not made my mind on him, need to see more, but I confess I'm not seeing anything that makes me go "wow".

yep. reminds me a ton of dante exum in terms of hype and of the unknown (not saying their games are similar). and we know how that worked out for utah.

it's scary drafting a guy to the nba who has never really be tested on the basketball court. doesn't mean he can't be great. just a huge risk.

[MemphisX]

Biggest unknown of the past few years.

High bust potential.

I've still not made my mind on him, need to see more, but I confess I'm not seeing anything that makes me go "wow".

He played a full eybl schedule. He is not an unknown.

[Shock Defeat]

After the first 4, I see a team wanting to hit a homerun and picking him 5th. That said he is similar to Dante Exum in that we are drafting him based on workouts and "potential"

[retrobro90]

Biggest unknown of the past few years.

High bust potential.

I've still not made my mind on him, need to see more, but I confess I'm not seeing anything that makes me go "wow".

yep. reminds me a ton of dante exum in terms of hype and of the unknown (not saying their games are similar). and we know how that worked out for utah.

it's scary drafting a guy to the nba who has never really be tested on the basketball court. doesn't mean he can't be great. just a huge risk.

Exum looked awesome in early years when he was available and he ultimately didn't pan out because of a multitude of injuries. Sharpe is healthy at least.

[Goldbum]

I don't think he gets past Portland unless they are top 3

[mattg]

First guard since Murray to not get his stock tanked by Cal and his method is ‘not playing’

Love it

uhh Herro?

Think the reality is that a lot of the guys coming to UK semi recently were really overrated out of HS. Part of that is when you recruit dudes who have gotten by on size/athleticism their whole lives and lack skill level and basketball instincts/smarts you're gonna get some absolute duds (think Ashton Hagans lol). That is on Cal and UK for choosing to recruit guys of that profile. At the same time, scouting services often also overrate those same guys.

[babyjax13]

Biggest unknown of the past few years.

High bust potential.

I've still not made my mind on him, need to see more, but I confess I'm not seeing anything that makes me go "wow".

yep. reminds me a ton of dante exum in terms of hype and of the unknown (not saying their games are similar). and we know how that worked out for utah.

it's scary drafting a guy to the nba who has never really be tested on the basketball court. doesn't mean he can't be great. just a huge risk.

Exum looked awesome in early years when he was available and he ultimately didn't pan out because of a multitude of injuries. Sharpe is healthy at least.

Exum had a few 4 or 5 game stretches where he looked like he was going to break out but inevitably always got hurt. Otherwise he was really bad, and I don't think 'looked awesome' is a characterization of his play at any point in time.

[Roger Murdock]

First guard since Murray to not get his stock tanked by Cal and his method is ‘not playing’

Love it

uhh Herro?

Think the reality is that a lot of the guys coming to UK semi recently were really overrated out of HS. Part of that is when you recruit dudes who have gotten by on size/athleticism their whole lives and lack skill level and basketball instincts/smarts you're gonna get some absolute duds (think Ashton Hagans lol). That is on Cal and UK for choosing to recruit guys of that profile. At the same time, scouting services often also overrate those same guys.

Theres like a 3:1 under-drafted/over-drafted ratio of UK players in the last 8 years.

When everyone who goes to your program ends up overacheiving their draft position in the NBA it isnt because they were overrated prospects

[Duke4life831]

One thing I do find interesting in all of this is the reaction of the UK fans towards Cal. They're pissed but for a very different reason than I thought they would be. To me from the very beginning I thought this situation was pretty easy to understand.

Sharpe decided to reclassify late. To late to do a full season of college hoops and missed out on the G league. So he could come in halfway through the college season which would be hard to do and risk hurting his draft stock. Or he could just train and get ready for the draft and get drafted off of his High school hype. So he did the obvious thing and train and get drafted off his high school hype. He could've just hired an agent and trained privately, or he could've gone to UK collect a ton in NIL. He got Porsches and rumors of high 6 figures. Also get to train in a world class facility and keep his name in the news. Again easy choice.

Then for Cal, pretty easy to understand why he would be down for this. Cal has said numerous times that draft night is the biggest night every year for the UK program. His entire thing to get new recruits is to pitch about how many past recruits are in the NBA. Sharpe is just another guy that he gets to walk into a new recruits house and say, "we have had X amount of #1 recruits come to UK" and "we have had X amount of 1st round picks and top 10 picks from UK". He gets to toss in Sharpe into these pitches. Recruiting is a very momentum based thing, having a recent top 10 pick in the draft really helps.

I thought all of that was pretty easy to grasp. But Im seeing huge chunks of UK fans pissed off at Cal, not for playing along with all of this. But they think Cal was played by Sharpe. They think Cal actually thought Sharpe was going to come back and just played Cal.