The NBA season faces its final stretch. Only 7 of the 30 teams that started the course are still alive and the gaze of those eliminated is already focused on their future, on the transfer market, which opens on July 1, and on the draft, which this year has a novelty: it will cover two days, on the first, June 26, the 30 rookies from the first round will be chosen; and in the second, the 27th, the 30th of the second.
Two nights of rookie selections, which according to the ESPN mock draft (draft forecasts), will have two Spanish players, one in each round. Juan Núñez will be chosen in 30th place (the last of the first) by the Boston Celtics, along with the Denver Nuggets, the great favorite to win the North American championship this season.
“Boston has a chance to affordably bolster its depth with this pick, presumably looking for a player who can help its current fight atop the East,” writes ESPN’s Jeremy Woo, “Núñez, 19 years, has excellent playmaking vision and has had a good season in Germany, which paves the way for him to become a viable NBA player, if he can score and defend at a high enough level,”
The Real Madrid youth player has performed at a high level the last two seasons at German club Ratiopharm Ulm. In his first campaign, he won the first Bundesliga in the club’s history and, in this second, he has become one of the most reliable game directors on the Old Continent: his 5.7 basket passes were the second most high in the Eurocup, where his team fell in the round of 16 against Joventut. He was also the fourth-best stealer in the tournament with 1.9 steals. He has also averaged 10.8 points and 3.6 rebounds for a 15.4 rating.
Núñez’s growth is not only in club basketball. Internationally, the Madrid native took a step forward last summer with the National Team during a World Cup… and he did it without a net: the absence of Lorenzo Brown and the abrupt departure of Ricky Rubio to take care of his mental health, elevated him to Scariolo’s main one , who already thought about him for the 2022 Eurobasket. He scored 5 goals, 3.4 rebounds and 5.2 assists (Top-20 in the Asian tournament) for an average rating of 9.8. His best performance, against Brazil, with 13 points, 7 sacks and 5 basket passes for 21 credits.
The other Spaniard on the list is Izan Almansa. The power forward (18 years old and 2.08 m) has fallen a lot in the forecasts, from that third pick in August 2023 to the current selection in 38th place, where the New York Knicks await. A pronounced decline that comes after winning the gold medal in the U-19 World Cup with Spain, the second in history for our country, but a bad season in Ignite, a project of promising young people to compete in a Development League that has gone over the top: only 2 wins in 34 games. These poor results have led the NBA, sponsor of the project, to dissolve the team. The Murcian averaged 11.7 points and 7.4 rebounds.
Almansa is currently in Chicago, at the Draft Combine, where promising young basketball players, with intentions in the draft, show their talent and skill to the talent scouts of the NBA franchises. Núñez also received an invitation, but will try out in Germany as he is still in competition with Ulm. “Getting to the NBA would be very exciting, it would make me and my family very happy and I am looking forward to it,” the Murcian told EFE.
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2024-05-17 09:41:53
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