The NBA announced it has sent invitations to 78 players, including projected lottery picks Zaccharie Risacher, Alex Sarr and Donovan Clingan, as well as USC’s Bronny James, to the 2024 NBA Draft Combine, which will take place May 12-19. .
The NBA announced it sent invitations to 78 players, including projected lottery picks Zaccharie Risacher, Alex Sarr and Donovan Clingan, as well as Bronny James from USC, to draft combine 2024, which will take place from May 12 to 19 at Wintrust. Arena in Chicago.
For the first time, all invited players will be required to attend and participate in the NBA draft combie or be ineligible to be drafted, as part of an agreement the NBA Players Association reached with the NBA in the collective bargaining agreement. more recent.
Participation will include medical examinations, medical history sharing, biomechanical and functional movement testing, as well as strength and agility testing, performance testing, and anthropometric measurements. Players will also be required to conduct team interviews and participate in media circuits, player development sessions and more. Players will not be required to compete in 5-on-5 drills or other live-action drills, but will be required to participate in shooting drills.
There are a handful of exceptions, such as being in season with a club team, something that will prevent several European lottery picks such as Zaccharie Risacher and Nikola Topic from participating, or a family injury or tragedy. Those players will need to complete Combine activities at a later date.
The inclusion of Bronny James on the list of Draft Combine It was the first step required to begin the process of getting cleared to play in the NBA following his cardiac arrest episode in July and the subsequent procedure to treat a congenital heart defect that sidelined him for five months, sources said.
Bronny James will need to be examined and approved by the NBA’s fitness-to-play panel before being eligible to participate in team workouts, compete in drills or scrimmages in the NBA. Draft Combine.
Sources said NBA-appointed doctors couldn’t begin that process until he was formally invited to the draft. In previous years, players previously referred to the league’s fit-to-play panel, such as Baylor’s Jared Butler and Kansas State’s Keyontae Johnson, were only cleared several weeks before the draft.
Along with a memo detailing the 78 invitations, the NBA also sent teams a list of prospects who have been designated “Top-10” players using a new composite classification used to determine how to distribute medical information for the most elite prospects in the game. draft.
This composite ranking combined publicly available rankings, a panel of experts, and a contracted scouting service to determine which teams will be allowed into the NBA and combine medical testing, biomechanics, and functional movement information.
The NBA reported that Perth’s Alex Sarr is ranked No. 1, meaning only teams that select in the top 10 will have access to his restricted combine data.
Matas Buzelis (G League Ignite), Stephon Castle (UConn), Donovan Clingan (UConn), Zaccharie Risacher (JL Bourg) and Nikola Topic (Red Star Belgrade) make up, in alphabetical order, the second group of prospects ranked from 2 to 6. Your medical information will only be shared with the teams they select in the top 15.
Rob Dillingham (Kentucky), Ron Holland (G League Ignite), Dalton Knecht (Tennessee) and Reed Sheppard (Kentucky) are the third group of prospects ranked 7-10, whose medical information will be shared only with the teams that choose from the first 25.
