Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Basketball's Johnny Furphy Declares for 2024 NBA Draft While Maintaining Eligibility

Starting point is 00:00:00 On today's Locked on Jayhawks bonus episode, Johnny Furphy declares for the NBA draft what it means for KU. 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. Give me a follow on Twitter at D Johnson radio. You can find our show here with locked on Jayhawks anywhere you get your podcast and on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show.

Starting point is 00:00:32 This is a bonus episode of the show. We had a cool episode, deep diving into Ryland Griffin, KU target out of Alabama, who now becomes even more prevalent with this news on Johnny Furphy. Possibly, I guess this doesn't eliminate really anything. And we'll get to that and what this all means with Johnny Furphy here.

Starting point is 00:00:48 Tomorrow, we're going to have a conversation, possible projections for the starting lineup with Nick Schwert. But on today's episode, we're breaking down Johnny Furphy, who has declared for the NBA draft. Here is the exact message that was posted on the Kansas basketball Instagram and Twitter page with a picture of Johnny Furphy. And it says, I am excited to announce that I am declaring for the 2024 draft while maintaining my college eligibility. I am so grateful to coach myself and the whole team at KU for the opportunity they gave me

Starting point is 00:01:17 to be part of this incredible program. From moving to a new country to participating in the NCAA tournament, this year has flown by faster than I could have ever imagined. I love my teammates and I'm so proud of everything we accomplished this season. So let's get into what specifically that all means, what it means for KU on this bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks. We've all been there. Either as a player or a fan, it's halftime and the scoreboard is not looking good. You're feeling low, not sure you or your team can pull out a win. That's when you dig deep.

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Starting point is 00:02:58 That tells you right there, he is still going to have the opportunity to come back to school. So obviously Furphy had a great year for Kansas, comes in as a late-recruited freshman from Australia, ends up coming off the bench the first portion of the season, becomes a starter in January. For the season, he averages nine points, five rebounds per game, shoots 46, 47% from the field, 35% from three. That's a number that really dipped, though, as the last month of the season went on. 77% at the foul line elite transition player really good spot up shooter for KU and honestly kind of similar season I game styles very different for these two guys but to Kelly Oubre Kelly Oubre came in as a high level recruit for KU wasn't starting in the early part of the season then became a starter about midway through the year

Starting point is 00:03:40 and the stats were better over the last two or three months of season than they were over the course of the season now Oubre think uh probably in a better draft position than furphy is furphy could still go you know very highly he could be a first round draft pick um i was looking at some mock drafts earlier today and i think the high watermark had him at 22 i think the low watermark had him at 37 among like the handful i looked at and it's just going to depend where you kind of look it is a weaker draft. But obviously for him now, he's going to go through the whole process and there's no, no real hurt in him going through the process here. So I think this was expected all the way along, whether you're on the side that Johnny Furphy is going to come back or Johnny

Starting point is 00:04:18 Furphy is going to need GoPro. This does not eliminate it one way or another. And this was always kind of an assumption that was going to happen. So the NBA combine is May 13th through 19th in Chicago. And that'll be an opportunity for him to get a better idea of where his stock is and do some testing that can either hurt or help the stock. And we'll see some official measurements and all that sort of stuff on what he's going to do. Then the deadline for him to withdraw would be by June 16th at 4 o'clock Central Time. So you're talking about two months from today is when you have to come back to, which means this process could go a while for Johnny Furfew. Because from Furfew's perspective, it's all going to depend what are you looking for?

Starting point is 00:05:00 Are you looking for just a first-round promise? I've said before that can be a little risky if you only have one first round promise and it's in the 24 to 30 range. Because what happens if a player who, let's say a team promises you at pick 27, that if you're there, we're going to take you. And then all of a sudden, some kid who was supposed to go pick 15

Starting point is 00:05:18 ends up falling to pick 27. And they're like, I'm sorry, we know we promised you, but like, we didn't expect this kid to fall here. We take him and then you don't have another promise in the first round. But if you have multiple promises in the 20 to 30 range, or if you have a promise at pick 17 where it's like, oh yeah, even if that ends up not happening, then which chances are that would,

Starting point is 00:05:38 then I have a big parachute that I can kind of fall off to. So it kind of depends how you want to play the game. Do they want to view it as, hey, we want a lottery promise. We want a top 20 promise. We want a first round promise, right? All that kind of depends on Johnny Furphy, his agent, his family, and how they are going to operate this. But they'll go through the testing and kind of get word back on all of that. Certainly, I think Furphy is somebody who could come back and improve on a lot of his game. He could obviously improve a lot of his game in the NBA as well. But I think if he comes back, he could be a guy that ends up being kind of an all-Big 12 first-team type of candidate

Starting point is 00:06:12 and a scoring leader type of candidate should it happen. But let's talk about how this would affect KU one way or another, whether he comes back or not on this episode of Locked on Jayhawks. When you're hiring for a small business, you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role. That's why you have to check out LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs is the tools to help you find the right professionals for your team faster and for free. LinkedIn isn't just the job board. LinkedIn helps you hire professionals you can't find anywhere else, even those who aren't actively searching for a new job but might be open to a perfect role. In a given month, over 70% of LinkedIn users don't visit other leading job sites.

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Starting point is 00:07:16 Terms and conditions apply. Well, obviously, Furphy has a decision to make. How is it going to affect ku well certainly all the news about rylan griffin becomes more important because it's not just that you know if johnny furphy comes back he's going to be a projected starter and projected to be one of your better players and one of the better players in the conference and everything like that it's also that as we've talked about over the offseason kansas needs to add more shooting and if you're saying hey if johnny furphy was arguably your best shooter on the team if you're saying, hey, if Johnny Furfew is arguably your best shooter on

Starting point is 00:07:45 the team, and you're saying, hey, we already went into the offseason knowing we needed to add more shooting, and now you lost your best shooter, it only amplifies the amount of shooting and the amount of scoring that you're going to kind of need. It amplifies the idea that you need another wing, because right now, I guess KJ technically is a wing, but I don't know. I view him more as like kind of a big, to be completely honest with you. And you don't have a bunch of wings on this roster. I mean, Kugel in a way is kind of a wing. He's kind of a guard wing combo there. So you need more wings on the roster, right? Like Rakees Passmore, probably kind of the same thing as Kugel, but you know, maybe he's more of a wing, but still you need more on the roster. And so enter some of the rumors and discussions you've heard,

Starting point is 00:08:26 whether it's AJ Storr, whether it's Rylan Griffin, and some of these guys where you can afford to bring one of those guys on even if Furphy does come back. But if Furphy goes and ends up staying in the draft process, you definitely could. Now, from how KU handles this becomes interesting because you have two months now for Johnny Furphy to make a decision. And from Bill Self's point of view, he's said this before. I don't know if this has been something that has

Starting point is 00:08:49 kind of evolved in his thought process. He views it as like, if you're going to go test the draft waters, approach it as like you're going to go pro. Not necessarily that it's going to happen, but that you should have that mindset you're going to do it because you want to be all in so that you approach it the best possible way. And from Kansas's perspective, they have to view it as, hey, we're losing this kid because you don't want to be caught with your pants on the ground where, oh, we expected him to come back and he ended up staying in the draft. And now we didn't get a good player we wanted. And we told, hey, sorry, we just can't take you right now. We'd love to have you, but we can't take you because we don't know what this kid's going to do. Now, realistically, in today's world, there are usually a handful of players who end up coming back from the early entrant deadline. And they end up entering the portal like look last year, like late entries with like Grant Nelson and Arthur Kaluma that hypothetically you'll be able to scramble and probably find a player.

Starting point is 00:09:42 But will it be your first choice or will it just be the last choice that's kind of there? And I think that's where it's at, where it's like, because Kansas has that one dangling scholarship that they can't use either this year or next year, they can choose which year they want to use. It kind of works out because you can almost view it as, hey, we're going to bring on, because right now, assuming Furphy stays in the NBA draft, you would have that one scholarship open and then you'd have the dangling one, where you could either use it this year or next year. So you'd either have one or two scholarships this year. Well, you can view it as, hey, we're just going to bring in two players,

Starting point is 00:10:14 and that way our bases are covered. And if Furphy decides to come back, maybe somebody transfers away. Or you can view it as, we're going to bring in a player to replace Johnny Furphy's scholarship in theory, and then we'll just leave that 13th one open to where if Furphy comes back, you play with 13 scholarship players. If Furphy does not come back, then you play with 12 scholarship players, and then the following year you have 13, right? So you can approach this in a couple different ways, but obviously, even though it's not a surprise and even though he still can come back, it furthers the idea and it just makes it more of a thing where it's like, hey, you go add the best players you can and you figure out the roster kind of later. You figure out those decisions kind of later because you can't be waiting around for two months to kind of figure out what you want to do here.

Starting point is 00:11:03 So we'll see what ends up happening with Furphy. Like I said, I still think it's kind of a out what you want to do here. So we'll see what ends up happening with Furphy. Like I said, I still think it's kind of a 50-50 coin flip. What ends up happening? One week, I think I said I had probably 55 to 60% that Furphy goes pro. Lately, I've been more on maybe the 55% that he comes back, but I don't know. It's a 50-50 coin flip. So we'll wait and see what happens. This is just the first step of the process, but expect more moves to come from Kansas because they're not just going to wait idly by. All right, that'll do it for this bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks.

Starting point is 00:11:31 Check out our Rylan Griffin episode because that could be an easy solution. You're talking about a 6'6 wing shooter who would come in and be able to kind of fill that role of Johnny Furphy or play alongside him should he come back. So you can find that anywhere. Get your podcast here with us on Locked on Jayhawks. Subscribe to the show and check us out on our YouTube page, and we'll be back tomorrow as well for a projection of the starting five

Starting point is 00:11:53 with Nick Schwert and some conversation around the rest of KU basketball, KU football, and plenty more. This has been LOJ.

Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - Kansas Jayhawks Basketball's Johnny Furphy Declares for 2024 NBA Draft While Maintaining Eligibility

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