Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Decision Time for Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Wing Johnny Furphy: Back to KU or in the NBA Draft?

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked On Jayhawks, it's decision day for Johnny Furphy. You are Locked On Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. I'm Derek Johnson. You can give me a follow on Twitter at DJohnsonRadio. And you can find our show with Locked on Jayhawks anywhere you get your podcasts, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. So you're always catching all of our stuff. And on today's episode of Locked on Jayhawks, we're talking Johnny Furphy

Starting point is 00:00:38 because the NBA draft early entrant withdrawal deadline, a lot of words that go into this, is Wednesday at basically midnight. So we're going to discuss that, the impact of if Furfew were to stay versus the impact if he were to go, where he sits in some of the latest mock drafts, other NBA draft decisions to keep an eye on on this episode of the show. And so I'm actually publishing this on Tuesday night. This is technically Wednesday's episode.

Starting point is 00:01:03 A lot of you people will be listening to this, watching this, whatever, on Wednesday. And so on Wednesday, that is decision day. If you're listening to this on Tuesday night, then we have about 24 hours from when Johnny Furphy has to decide if he is keeping his name in the draft or going to return to school for another year. Now, this could happen at any moment. He could make the decision. I don't know. By the time you listen to this, he might have already made the decision, right? A lot of stuff can kind of happen here. So let's get right into it. He has until 1159 p.m. Eastern time. So basically 11 p.m., 11 o'clock local time, central time here to make his decision known of what he's going to be doing,

Starting point is 00:01:47 whether he's staying in the NBA draft, which will be at the end of June, or drawing his name and getting ready for his sophomore season at Kansas. And so he is somebody who is currently kind of on a bubble of, would he be a first-round pick? Would he be a second-round pick? There are some mocks that we'll get to those in in our next segment that have him as more of a second round pick some have him as a late first some have him as like a middle to early first even a lottery pick so it's kind of all over the board and part of that is this NBA draft where it is much more wide open this year that leaves the possibilities really everywhere possibly for Johnny Furphy here

Starting point is 00:02:24 so part of it's going to depend on what his camp wants right does he want a lottery guarantee a top 20 guarantee does he want you know multiple guarantees in the first round to make sure that um if something weird happens with only one team that promised him in the late first that you have another team that you can fall back to do you just want one promise in the first round there do you just want a promised contract right to where even if you go pick 35 you get a promise deal right uh how much does nil play into this with kansas in terms of how you can get it done because you're an international player and how much you can get there's a lot of moving parts here that could come in to this final day of work here now if he does

Starting point is 00:02:58 end up returning i think the big impact here for kansas to me would be that the roster or at least the rotation is pretty much set. Right now you have 11 scholarship players. If you go out and bring back Johnny Furphy, you're 12 scholarship players. They could still go to 13, but I would assume if that were to happen, if they were to go to 13, that 13th player would be more of a developmental player, somebody who the expectation wouldn't necessarily be a rotation player this year, that they would be somebody you develop for a year. And then when you lose a lot of players following the 2024 to 25 season, they would be ready to step into a bigger role the

Starting point is 00:03:35 following season. So I think from that standpoint, it would certainly make it so that you're not bringing on any other impact players. I think from Johnny Murphy's perspective, if he does decide to come back, like from his perspective, probably would be looking to work on the defensive side of the ball, certainly. And I always thought, even though he was never a great defender this year, there were certain things he did well, and like he tried really hard on that end. And so when I look at a guy who is basically a six foot eight, six foot nine wing, and you tried hard on defense, there's no reason that with more seasoning, with more experience, with more coaching from Bill Self, or in the NBA, but in this hypothetical,

Starting point is 00:04:11 I'm talking about him returning, that he couldn't turn into eventually at least an above average to good defender, right? So you'd be looking at that. He'd be looking at can he create more in the half court, do more off of the dribble, and just continue to kind of hone his game as far as a spot-up shooter? Because as great as that was for a while, it did drop off a little bit as the season kind of concluded there. So that would be the big thing there.

Starting point is 00:04:33 And if he does return, I think it would make for a lot of interesting discussions about what is the starting lineup for Kansas. Do you want Harrison Hunter-Digginson, pencil them in for – pen them in, sharpie them in for being in the starting lineup okay that leaves three spots well certainly Johnny Furphy after starting on last year's team you would think he's going to start again I mean AJ Storer was all big 10 second team would have been all big 10 first team coming in to the preseason this year he's probably going to start so then you get into conversation of does Ryland Griffin start does Johnny Furphy start? Does KJ Adams start? Does Zeke Mayo start? I mean,

Starting point is 00:05:06 realistically, there's somebody going to be left off and even two players in that situation going to be left off who are probably good enough to start in a lot of other cases. So it becomes a very interesting conversation. If he does return about that, it becomes an interesting conversation about how does the minutes play out? Are you going to have just a bunch of guys more than we've usually seen with a Bill Self rotation playing 20 to 25 minutes a game as opposed to him giving a lion's share of the minutes to six, seven, eight guys that he would expand the rotation to be about nine deep and have seven or eight guys playing 15 to 20 plus minutes per game, right?

Starting point is 00:05:40 There are a lot of interesting things that that would add to. It would also obviously become an even better shooting team for Kansas. I mean, if you had Furphy, Mayo, Griffin, I mean, those are three knockdown shooters. A.J. Storrs just a pure scorer. You can get some shooting from Hunter Dickinson. Ideally, you can get some shooting from Zach Clements, but we haven't seen that, at least on the court yet. It would be a pretty, pretty impressive team, to say the least. And Furphy might represent the highest ceiling of those players in terms of possible NBA draft. I've said before, and I'll say it again, like if Furphy did decide to come back and, you know, maybe I

Starting point is 00:06:14 think right now I'd probably lean in that he would stay in the draft, but I guess you never really do know that. I think there, there is a real chance that Furphy could become like a 16, 17, 18 point per game score. Now, maybe next year's team with how loaded they're going to be, that would be a little bit tougher for him. But I've always thought that he has that potential in his game to take kind of a Ben McElmore, I don't know, Wayne Seldon type jump from one year to the next. And Seldon did it sophomore to junior year. McElmore did it from redshirt freshman year to redshirt sophomore, or I'm sorry, from true freshman year to redshirt freshman year, since we just didn't really even get to see him play,

Starting point is 00:06:52 but that he could take another leap into being that, you know, all American kind of level player. Now, if he does decide to stay in the draft, the impact there for Kansas, they'd be sitting on 11 scholarship players. You could still convince yourself that even without Johnny Furphy back, Kansas is sitting pretty good for a rotation, right? DeJuan Harris, Ryland Griffin, AJ Storr, KJ Adams, Hunter Dickinson, Zeke Mayo, Elmarco Jackson, and then your backup center, one of Flory Badunga or Zach Clements. I don't know, maybe they both get some minutes. Either way, backup center, let's just call that the eighth

Starting point is 00:07:22 spot. And that doesn't even account for the other center. That doesn't even account for keys pass more, who is somebody who I think a lot of people are really high on that. He's going to, you know, play better than where his recruiting rank was necessarily. So, I mean, you still feel good about that rotation. You still feel good about where you're out, especially if a Marco Jackson does make a jump in year two. And if he doesn't make a jump in year two, then maybe it does end up being a team that is more. Yeah, we're just going to play those six guys with DeJuan, Griffin, Storr, Adams, Dickinson, and Zeke Mayo, all 25 to 30 plus minutes a night.

Starting point is 00:07:55 And then we'll have the role for the backup center. And then somebody else might play 10, 12 minutes, spot minutes. But either way, you can make that work from a, I guess, rotation perspective. But it still does leave you the option open if Furphy stays in the draft to go add an impact player, go try to add a Jackson Robinson or a Wuga Poplar or some of these other players that are still available on the portal, even though the numbers are dwindling. We talked about Chaz Lanier, the North Florida transfer committing to Tennessee, right? That's one less player

Starting point is 00:08:21 that you could possibly go for. There still would be room there. The question is, would they actually do it? Or would they basically just say, hey, if we can make this happen, if Furphy's staying in the draft, we can make this happen with Jackson Robinson. We'll take that swing on adding the big player. If not, we're not going to really go that way. I would expect regardless if Furphy stays in the draft, them to add a 12th player for sure. If Furphy comes back and you're sitting at 12, like I said, if you do add a 13th player, probably more of a developmental guy. I think if Murphy stays in the draft, the 12th guy probably becomes that more of a developmental guy. And then maybe at that point, you're just saying, nah, yeah, we don't, we don't need to add a 13th guy this year. Cause that's going to be too much work. Or maybe they had two developmental guys. Cause again, you're going to

Starting point is 00:09:00 be losing a lot of players after this 2024 to 2025 season, you're going to be losing Dwan Harris and Zeke Mayo and KJ Adams and Hunter Dickinson, right? You're going to lose a lot of this team that having more players back that know the system to be ready to fill in the year after that certainly isn't or wouldn't be a bad thing for KU. And if he does stay in the draft, I wish him well. And I think everybody wishes him well to get drafted as high as possible and have a great NBA career from there. Should that end up being the situation that he wants to get into? And certainly if he does stay in the draft, that probably should be pretty indicative that he will be a relatively high draft pick in the NBA, that he has the promises that he was looking for to go into this whole thing. So I think that would be the big thing for KU. All right, let's get to where is he in some of these latest mock drafts and the decision

Starting point is 00:09:52 that he has to make and then other NBA draft decisions that we need to be keeping an eye on from the Kansas perspective on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. First, this episode is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. It's winner-take-all time in the NBA and NHL, and FanDuel's giving you a shot to bring home a big win of your own. Right now, new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That's $150 to bet on spreads, money lines, player props, and more. Who do you think's going to win the NBA finals.

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Starting point is 00:11:10 of the Locked On Podcast Network. All right, continuing on. So where does Furphy, as he's about to make this decision, sit in some of these latest mock drafts? And when this decision will come, by the way, yeah, we don't know. It could be up until the deadline. In fact, who knows? Maybe we don't even get an announcement.

Starting point is 00:11:30 That did happen before. I remember back in, gosh, that would have been the summer of 2019 because it was before the 19-20 season. Yudoka Azubuki was coming off that injury in the 18-19 season, and he was still injured until, I want want to say like June or July of that upcoming summer so he wasn't able so he like tested the NBA draft waters but he wasn't able to actually like work out and go through the combine and do some of these personal team workouts and stuff like he wasn't able to do any of that stuff um so he wasn't able to like

Starting point is 00:11:59 showcase his skills and who knows if that would have led to him actually staying in the draft or not would he have gotten the right feedback he was looking for? Anyway, I don't know. That remains to be seen because the Doak we saw as a senior, Doak was already a really productive player, really efficient player, really valuable player his first three years. But his fourth year, as we know, he took it to another level. The efficiency stayed the same.

Starting point is 00:12:19 The rebounding got even better. Shot blocking got even better. His ability to guard in space got much better from the year before. So like that guy was a much different guy than the one the year before. But anyway, point being, I remember he wanted to be able to go to the NBA already. And I remember he never actually announced that he was coming back or not. And it passed like the deadline. And there were all these, the like beat writers and stuff being like, yeah, we haven't heard anything, but his, you know, he, his name is like out of the NBA draft or whatever it is, or he hasn't,

Starting point is 00:12:50 you know, submitted the paperwork to stay in the draft or, or whatever it ended up being. So he basically just kind of is the opposite of quiet quitting. I guess it would be quiet quitting, but for the NBA draft, so who knows, maybe we won't even see some sort of announcement. If that is the case, I do expect there to be something from a furphy or, or from, I don't know, KU something like that anyway.

Starting point is 00:13:08 So CBS is the high watermark on where Furphy comes in at. He is 13th on the latest CBS sports mock draft. So he has a lottery pick to the Sacramento Kings in the latest mock draft. Obviously, if he's going to be a lottery pick, go man, make your paycheck, make lots of money you know roll on a team right away and and boom do your thing uh obviously that would be i just realized no why does it always have to be the kings now the kings are much better franchise right now over these past two or three years like the beacon than they have been um when they drafted like

Starting point is 00:13:40 or when they've had uh whether it was drafting Ben McElmore, Frank Mason, or, uh, you know, having Thomas Robinson, some of these guys. Uh, but yeah, that is, that is traditionally where Jayhawks have gone to die. So you don't, you don't really want to see that for Johnny Furphy as much as you do want to see him be a lottery pick. Um, if he does stay in the draft, uh, the ringer is one of the low water marks though. And that has him at 34th. Now the ringers mock was, was a couple of weeks ago. So this was, you know, before the combine and everything like that, but we've talked about this before on the show that it mentioned that kind of the idea swirling, at least from the ringers perspective and the people they talked to was that they expect him to stay or to go back to school. Now could that just be why they have

Starting point is 00:14:23 him 34th because they expect that. And so they're not, you know, putting him to where they think he normally would, because they don't want to mess up their mock draft because they think he's, I don't know, whatever. Bleacher Report also was tied for the low watermark, 34th there. And that one mentioned, you know, an unimpressive combine, which is interesting because some of these other mock drafts

Starting point is 00:14:40 mentioned an impressive combine. So it just depends on what you're looking for. Some people were just looking at, oh, did he shoot well in the combine shooting settings? And it was like, yes, he did. Some people were like, oh, that was really impressive. And then what Bleacher Report mentioned was that it was an unimpressive combine because his wingspan wasn't very big, especially compared to his height, mixing up height and weight, the same word here, his height to wingspan, not that big of a difference. And then his weight was too slender. So it kind of mentioned that, and it only had him 34th. Now, if those are the case, ringer or bleacher board at 34th,

Starting point is 00:15:14 I would say go back to school. Now there is a case to be made that, hey, if you go back to school, what if you don't perform as well? Could your stock drop even more? That is definitely valid. And what if you go back to school and because you have Storr and Dickinson and all these guys, what if you become a fourth or fifth option? Well, I would argue that if you are an efficient fourth or fifth option and Kansas ends up being a final four team, a national title team or something like that, like Alex Caraban was the fourth or fifth option for UConn this past year, but he was an efficient player. I mean, they had Donovan Kling in, they had Stefan Castle who's going to go in the top 10 of the NBA draft.

Starting point is 00:15:47 Tristan Newton was their all-American player. Camp Spencer was great. You could argue Alex Caravan was the fifth option. He's being talked about as a late first round pick, right? So you can still get that way, I guess is my point here. And NBA DraftNet has him 26th. So that's kind of fringe whether you'd stay in or not. ESPN has him 18th in their latest mock draft, and they mentioned him doing well at the Combine,

Starting point is 00:16:08 kind of opposite to, you know, what Bleacher Report mentioned. And so with ESPN, if he's 18th, again, that would be a kind of bar none stay in. Then there's the New York Post, which that also had him 18th. So now we're continuing to lean more to being a top 20 guy. The Athletic athletic which they last did theirs prior to the nba combine though sam vasini has you know he talks about this all the time that that he doesn't overvalue what happens at the combine specifically anyway but he's 22nd there so that would be kind of in between the 26th and the 18th but in the athletic

Starting point is 00:16:40 big board from sam vasini which that's what his rankings compared to the mock draft, which is what he thinks would happen. He's 17th. So kind of all over the map there, though, more of them do seem to be leaning toward him being kind of a top 20 guy. One thing that is interesting, there was a report out there that he's only been working out for teams that are in the lottery. That could mean a whole lot of things. Does that mean that Johnny Furphy is basically saying, if I get a lottery promise, I will stay in the draft. But if I don't get a lottery promise, I'm coming back to school. Or are you just looking for a first round promise, right? And I've talked about this before. I'll say it again. Maybe you're looking for a top 20 promise. Maybe you're looking for a top 35 promise,

Starting point is 00:17:28 but the teams are picking in the early second round are saying, yeah, but we give you a guaranteed contract that it's at least whatever, three or four years. Or are you looking for just a first round promise at all? That can be a sticky game because what if the team who gives you a first round promise is picking 27th and then

Starting point is 00:17:45 somebody they thought wasn't going to be there who they actually like better than you ends up falling in the draft and like you think last year like like i think cam whitmore was supposed to be like a top 10 pick or something top five pick he ends up going like 20th what if the rockets promised somebody else that yeah 20 we'll take you to this other player but they never thought that cam whitmore is going to fall and then cam whitmore ends up in their lap at 20 and they're like sorry we got to take him and then whoever they promised thought that Cam Whitmore is going to fall. And then Cam Whitmore ends up in their lap at 20 and they're like, sorry, we got to take him. And then whoever they promised before ends up, I don't know, going in the late first or in the second round or something that could definitely happen. So you almost have to be like, Hey,

Starting point is 00:18:14 if we're operating on, we want a first round promise. Maybe you need two first round promises, right? But if you have a lottery promise, or if you have a top 20 promise, then it's like, well, the parachute, if I fall past the team that promised me I have so many picks before I'd fall out of the first round so I don't know if that is something that that he is prescribing to that's just something that I've known has been for some people has been the case um so anyway does that mean that he's only working out for lottery teams that he wants a lottery only promise and that is something that I heard at the beginning of the offseason which kind of got me to a point where I was like, maybe Furphy is going to be coming back because that's kind of what I was hearing about that. He wanted a lottery promise, not just

Starting point is 00:18:53 a first round promise that he wanted a lottery promise. Now, the fact that that is true or that he's only working out for teams in the lottery, maybe that kind of echoes that same sentiment from the beginning, or it could be something else. It could be that this is a power play by the agent and his party to try to get him into that range, to try to almost bluff. You're playing a game of poker a little bit as the agent to say, hey, we're only working out for teams in the lottery because we know we're going to, at the very worst, go in the lottery. Maybe he already does have a promise in the lottery.

Starting point is 00:19:23 And so maybe he's saying, hey, we already have a promise in the lottery. So if my floor is the lottery, why would I work out for anybody at pick 23? Let's just work out for team's lottery because I know I'm going to go in the lottery. And to that point, I mentioned on CBS, it had him going 13th to the Sacramento Kings. ESPN also mentioned in their mock draft, even though they had him going 18th, they mentioned going to the Kings at 13 would make sense, which does make me wonder, what if the Sacramento Kings did promise Johnny Furphy, and that is kind of out there in the agent GM NBA breaking news sphere, right? So that's possible too. So there's kind of a lot that can kind of go into this. But yeah, that could mean all sorts of things

Starting point is 00:20:05 in terms of what it is. But I guess we'll find out more when that decision does come, which could be any moment now. Okay, let's continue on on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. Other NBA decisions to keep an eye on. Finishing things up on this episode

Starting point is 00:20:20 of Locked on Jayhawks. And thank you to the everydayers tuning in to each and every show. We'll have another show talking about whatever this decision ends up being for Johnny Furphy. We're going to get to some more player deep dives coming up on the show and then we'll have a football Friday later this week too

Starting point is 00:20:31 here with Locked on Jayhawks to make sure you're with the show anywhere you get it. Other NBA decisions to keep an eye on or ones that have, I guess, already happened. I did a deep dive on JT Toppin, who I called the best player available in the portal. As we talked about in the show, though, it was never going to be an ideal transfer pickup for Kansas, given the position he played. I was still intrigued by it, and I said that I don't care.

Starting point is 00:20:54 I would just make it happen. But you could understand why that would be the case. Unfortunately for Kansas, they're going to have to play against him because he ended up returning from the NBA draft to JT Toppin. He's going to Texas Tech. So Kansas is going to see him up close and personal. I think he's an outstanding player. I would probably have him like if I was doing my preseason first, second, and third Big 12 teams. I mean, still waiting on, I guess, some more decisions and transfers and stuff like that. But I would definitely have him on one of those three teams. I'm very high on what he's going to bring to the table to Texas Tech. Obviously, you'll be keeping an eye on Jackson

Starting point is 00:21:27 Robinson, the transfer from BYU. Bleacher Report has him at 49 in their mock draft. NBA DraftNet has him at 38, but the rest of those mock drafts that I mentioned above with Furphy, so CBS, The Ringer, ESPN, New York Post, The Athletic, all of them have him undrafted. He is 79th on the Athletics big board. So again, this kind of comes down. What are you looking for? Are you looking for just a guarantee of a two-way deal? Are you looking for just a guaranteed contract in general, which you can get as undrafted

Starting point is 00:21:56 or late second round pick? Are you looking to be drafted? There's a lot of things that would depend on kind of all of that. Luka Poplar, another player that we did a deep dive on, He's undrafted in all of those sites for the mock draft. He's 89th on the athletic big board. I feel like that would mean you should probably come back. And then haven't heard any connections with a guy like Christie, who we did a deep dive on too,

Starting point is 00:22:16 but we'll be keeping an eye on that decision and any other players that maybe we haven't heard a connection with yet, but that maybe end up coming back and are in the portal. And then if KU says, Oh, well, for free ends up staying in the draft. And if Robinson stays in the draft,

Starting point is 00:22:30 maybe we'll try to kick the tires late on one of these other players. So we'll let you know on what all those decisions are coming up on another episode. Shoot soon of locked on Jayhawks. That'll do it for this episode of LOJ. You can find our show anywhere. You get your podcast, including on our YouTube page.

Starting point is 00:22:44 We'll be back next time to talk about the Johnny Furphy decision. See ya.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Decision Time for Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Wing Johnny Furphy: Back to KU or in the NBA Draft?

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