Two weeks out from the 2024 NBA draft, it’s shaping up as another eventful day for Kentucky basketball.
Well, two days, actually.
League officials decided to expand the annual draft by an additional day this year — so no more waiting into the wee hours for the final selections, hopefully — with the first round set for June 26 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn and the second round on July 27 from ESPN Studios in New York, where the names of former UK players Reed Sheppard, Rob Dillingham, Justin Edwards and Antonio Reeves are all expected to be called over the course of the event.
Coverage of the first round will start at 8 p.m. on ABC and ESPN, with the second round beginning at 4 p.m. the following day on ESPN. There will be a total of 58 picks in this year’s draft.
Here’s the latest on where the major projections have Sheppard, Dillingham, Edwards and Reeves ending up.
REED SHEPPARD
The unexpected star turn from Kentucky native Reed Sheppard over the course of the 2023-24 season has positioned him to be, perhaps, the first college basketball player off the board in this year’s draft. Wherever he ends up, it’s looking increasingly unlikely that he will fall further than No. 6 overall.
Sheppard is not expected to be the No. 1 overall pick — held by the Atlanta Hawks, the team his father, Jeff Sheppard, played for during his brief NBA career — but it wouldn’t be a stretch to see him selected with any of the next five picks, currently held by the Washington Wizards (No. 2), Houston Rockets (No. 3), San Antonio Spurs (No. 4), Detroit Pistons (No. 5) and Charlotte Hornets (No. 6).
The latest mock drafts from ESPN and The Athletic both have Sheppard going to the Rockets at No. 3 overall, but there’s a catch. Houston’s roster is already stacked with young talent, including recent top-five picks Jalen Green, Jabari Smith and Amen Thompson plus top-20 picks Alperen Sengun, Tari Eason and Cam Whitmore — all of them 23 or younger.
That could make the Rockets likely to move their No. 3 pick to another team, shaking up the top of the draft. Both ESPN’s Jonathan Givony and Sam Vecenie of The Athletic noted in their mock drafts that other teams around the NBA expect Houston to explore trade opportunities with this pick.
If the Rockets keep it, however, both longtime draft analysts have Sheppard as the selection to give Houston more outside shooting. In a post this week, ESPN analyst Jeremy Woo named Sheppard the best spot-up shooter in the 2024 draft class following a freshman season in which he hit 52.1% from 3-point range and 51.4% on catch-and-shoot attempts.
“His release is compact and consistent, with minimal dip and wasted motion, and his lower-body balance and shot-prep habits are excellent, giving him a high-level skill that should translate to NBA range,” Woo said.
If Sheppard does go in the top five, he would be the first former UK player from Kentucky to be drafted that high in the history of the NBA draft. The late Melvin Turpin — a Bryan Station grad — currently holds that honor as the No. 6 pick in the 1984 draft.
ROB DILLINGHAM
ANTONIO REEVES
Following a spring in which Antonio Reeves was often absent from NBA mock drafts, the leading scorer from last season’s Kentucky team now finds himself on both lists from The Athletic (No. 44 overall to the Rockets) and ESPN (the 58th and final pick of the draft, which belongs to the Dallas Mavericks).
Reeves, who averaged 20.2 points per game this past season — the most by a player in 15 years of the John Calipari era — seemingly has the outside shooting ability and overall scoring package to stick in the NBA, and the Herald-Leader has been told in recent days that he’s widely expected to be selected at some point in this year’s draft, despite the fluctuating outside projections over the past few months.
OTHER NBA DRAFT NOTES
A few other NBA draft notes with two weeks to go until the big night:
▪ Tre Mitchell is the other draft-eligible player from last season’s UK basketball team, and while he’s not expected to be picked, ESPN does rank him as the No. 82 overall prospect in this year’s pool. If Mitchell is not selected, he will be eligible to sign with an NBA team as an undrafted free agent, like Oscar Tshiebwe (Indiana Pacers) and Jacob Toppin (New York Knicks) did last year. Both Toppin (nine games) and Tshiebwe (eight) played in the NBA during the 2023-24 season.
▪ John Calipari, who left Kentucky to become the head coach at Arkansas in April, should hit a milestone with his final Wildcats draft class. He had 47 total picks (counting Enes Freedom and Shaedon Sharpe) in his first 14 seasons as head coach and needs just three more later this month to make it to 50 for his UK tenure.
▪ ESPN has Zaccharie Risacher going to the Atlanta Hawks with the No. 1 pick, while The Athletic projects Alex Sarr to be selected first overall. Both players are 19-year-olds from France (and Sarr is the younger brother of former UK player Olivier Sarr). The latest projections from Fox Sports and USA Today have Risacher at No. 1, while CBS projects Sarr in the top spot.
▪ Other than Sheppard and Dillingham, the top SEC player in this year’s draft class is Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht, who’s projected to go No. 9 to the Grizzlies on the ESPN board and No. 6 to the Hornets on The Athletic’s list. Somewhat surprisingly, other than Edwards and Reeves, no additional SEC players are included in either of those mock drafts.
▪ Of course, there will be plenty of national headlines on Bronny James — son of Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James — during the two-day draft. ESPN currently projects Bronny to the Golden State Warriors at No. 52 overall, while The Athletic sends him to the Lakers at No. 55.
