Duke forward AJ Griffin officially announced on Sunday that he’ll be entering the 2022 NBA Draft (Twitter link). Based on the wording of the announcement from the school, it sounds as if Griffin will forgo his remaining college eligibility and go pro.
Griffin’s decision comes as no surprise, as he’s considered a potential lottery pick, ranking No. 8 overall on ESPN’s big board. As a freshman, he averaged 10.4 PPG and 3.9 RPG with an impressive .447 3PT% in 39 games (24.0 MPG).
In his scouting report on Griffin, Mike Schmitz of ESPN refers to the 18-year-old as one of college basketball’s best shooters and says he has the type of physical frame NBA scouts love (6-foot-6 with a seven-foot wingspan). While Griffin looked like a potential top-five pick at times, there were other games where he looked like a “one-dimensional gunner,” according to Schmitz, who says the former Blue Devil will have to prove he can be a “willing, engaged” defender.
Griffin joins his Duke teammates Paolo Banchero, Mark Williams, Trevor Keels and Wendell Moore in the 2022 draft pool.
Meanwhile, 18-year-old Congolese center Yannick Nzosa has also declared for the draft, a source tells Jonathan Givony of ESPN (Twitter link). Nzosa, who has spent the last couple seasons playing for Unicaja in Spain, is the No. 46 prospect on ESPN’s board and projects as a second-round pick, according to Givony.
Sunday night was the deadline for early entrants to declare for the 2022 NBA Draft, so we should get an official preliminary early entry list from the league at some point this week. We’ve been tracking this year’s early entrants right here, but our list is unofficial and could grow significantly when the NBA puts out the full list of names.
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