In case you missed it bruinponcho fanshotted the news coming out from Bruin Report Online re. JH. From the public portion of BRO's subscription based report:
Holiday to Put Name in NBA Draft
The freshman guard and his parents will meet with Howland today to tell him he's testing the waters.
As of right now I have not seen any confirmation of that specific report. The only thing we have is the following note from Dohn before the meeting took place on Tuesday:
I talked to Shawn Holiday, the father of UCLA freshman guard Jrue Holiday, this morning and he said no decision has been made as to whether he will enter the NBA draft.
"No, it has not been made,'' Shawn said. "Nothing yet.''
Shawn said an appointment has not yet been made to meet with Holiday and his family.
"We haven't really discussed it much,'' Shawn said. "We took last week off to chill. We're supposed to schedule an appointment with (Howland) later this week.''
So we don't really know for sure yet whether the meeting took place.
Anyway, whether or not the meeting take place, I think it's a forgone conclusion (if I am reading the tealeaves right based on what we have heard about JH to date) that he will "test" the NBA waters. And if he does once again here are the two dates to keep in mind:
- April 26: Deadline for JH and other underclassmen around the country to declare eligibility for the summer's NBA Draft.
- June 15: Deadline for JH and other other underclassmen to pull out of the NBA draft (provided that an agent has not been hired by the player). If an agent is hired, game is over.
While all of this unfolds, I am not really going to pay attention to the NBA draft sites because I don't think none of that projections really matter. What really matters are the evaluations of actual NBA team scouts who don't write lot of these joke draft sites. Moreover, none of those evaluations will matter to players who are going to make their decisions based on their own individual circumstances (advices they get from their families, "handlers" and coaches). Plus the fact that JH will likely "test" the NBA waters even after not so spectacular freshman season, means that he will most likely jump if he gets some kind of assurance from an NBA team.
Yes, we all know JH will likely benefit if he comes back and spends another year under Howland learning to play defense. We know that will probably benefit him in the long run and position him better for that second K in the NBA. But usually in this kind of situations our opinions don't matter as it is all up to the players and their immediate families. I wish JH luck no matter what he decides to do but I don't think I am going to obsess over his decision making process on a day to day basis unless something major breaks and let it all play out like we have done previously here on BN. We are going to sit back and chill while all this "testing the water" song and dance gets played out over next few weeks. As we have said all along, no matter what happens we are in good shape under Howland.
GO BRUINS.