What were Trevor Lacey, J.P. Tokoto thinking?
Scott Fowler’s quick takes:
▪ Did you see the recent “Saturday Night Live” when the show spoofed Mike Krzyzewski? The best line was when the actor playing Coach K at a news conference pontificated: “Like I told all my players, college is the most important year of your life.”
▪ Jokes aside, I totally get the decisions made by Duke’s Jahlil Okafor, Justise Winslow and Tyus Jones to declare for the draft after a single year. I still don’t like the “one-and-done” rule. But if you’re going to be a first-round draft pick after one year and you’ve already won a national championship, it’s hard to argue that you should stay in school.
▪ I really don’t understand what Trevor Lacey is thinking, though, leaving N.C. State with a year of eligibility left to enter the NBA draft. It sounds like Lacey will go undrafted, so it doesn’t make much sense – he would be the centerpiece of a Wolfpack team that would contend for the ACC title if he returned. I would say the same about UNC’s J.P. Tokoto, who might get picked but probably not in the first round.
▪ Bristol is NASCAR’s sweet-tea version of Fenway Park. If you’ve never made the three-hour trip to Bristol to watch a race and are the least bit interested in the sport, you owe it to yourself to go.
▪ The Panthers had a workout with Southern Cal receiver Nelson Agholor Thursday – considered a possible second-round pick – and are considering taking him in the draft. Given Carolina’s previous “success” picking Trojan wide receivers in the second round (Dwayne Jarrett, Keary Colbert), what could possibly go wrong?
▪ Hornets coach Steve Clifford said this week that Kemba Walker needs to shoot “35 or 36 percent” from three-point range if he is going to make an offensive leap in his game. Not sure I see that happening – Walker is a career 31.8 percent three-point shooter. That percentage is also exactly what the Hornets shot as a team from long range this season, which was worst in the NBA.
▪ It’s very apparent Clifford is not enamored with the work ethic of the Hornets’ P.J. Hairston, who so far has done nothing to endear himself to the team’s fans.
▪ If the Hornets by some miracle win the NBA draft lottery, I would take Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns over Okafor. I like Towns defensively a little more. Either, though, would be a blessing to a Hornets team that was undermanned most of last season.
▪ I saw a mock draft from Sports Illustrated that guessed what would happen if the Hornets stayed at No. 9 in this draft (the Hornets had the ninth-worst record in the league). Charlotte ended up with Wisconsin’s Frank “The Tank” Kaminsky. That would be fine, too.
This story was originally published April 18, 2015 at 4:46 PM.