Syracuse, N.Y. -- Oshae Brissett and Tyus Battle have been invited to attend the newly configured G League Elite Camp, which begins Sunday and stretches through next Tuesday. Afterward, at the same location in Chicago (Quest Multiplex), the NBA draft combine will begin. A select number of players from the G League camp will be invited to continue their stay at the NBA combine. NBA combine traditionally has been a launching pad for NBA talent and a fairly good predictor of which players will be drafted that year. Over the past five seasons, an average of 43 of the NBA’s 60 draft picks were filled by players who participated in the NBA combine. Last year was a particularly good year for combine invitees: 49 of them heard their names on draft night. Over the last five years, NBA teams have drafted a total of 11 college players who did not secure combine invitations. That’s fewer than three per year. The highest of those picks was Josh Huestis, whom the Thunder selected with the 29th pick of the 2014 NBA Draft. Huestis subsequently spent most of his career in the G League. Josh Richardson is probably the best recent example of a college player who succeeded in the NBA without a combine experience. The former Tennessee wing was not invited to the 2015 combine, but the Heat made him the 40th selection that year and Richardson has been a productive player in Miami his entire pro career. Securing an invite to the combine, however advantageous, is no guarantee that a player will be drafted. That’s mostly because NBA teams select an average of 10 international players each June who have never played a minute of college basketball. Those international players rarely attended the combine. So what happens to combine participants that don’t get drafted? Some of those invitees -- like Battle last year -- return to their respective colleges and remove their names from consideration. Others go undrafted and begin to find their way in professional basketball. An average of 15 guys who attend the combine each year stay in the draft and are not selected by an NBA team. The vast majority of those players wind up in the G League or in Europe. Some of the more successful stories of undrafted players who participated in NBA combines over the past five years include: 2018 Allonzo Trier: The Arizona product came out after his junior season and ultimately ended up with the New York Knicks, where he played substantial minutes this season. Kenrich Williams: The TCU senior was not drafted last year but hooked up with the Pelicans and played meaningful late-season minutes. 2017 Chris Boucher: The former Oregon forward out of Quebec dealt with injury and played intermittently for the Warriors’ G League team last year; signed by the Raptors in the offseason, his two-way contract was recently converted to a regular contract. 2016 Dorian Finney-Smith: The former Florida forward endured a serious injury last year but has stuck with the Dallas Mavericks and gets rotational minutes. 2015 Quinn Cook: The former Duke point guard is a member of the Golden State Warriors and plays about 14 minutes per game. 2014 Khem Birch: Birch, who played for the Pittsburgh Panthers for a year before transferring to UNLV, bounced around the G League and Europe before landing with the Orlando Magic in 2017. He’s still on the Magic roster and averaged about 5 points per game this season. Syracuse guard Tyus Battle (25) during a game against Notre Dame on Saturday, Jan. 5, 2019, at the Joyce Center in South Bend, Ind. Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.comDennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com This year, the NBA has repurposed a combine previously set aside solely for G League players. It’s called the G League Elite Camp and it now allows college seniors and underclassmen to participate in a showcase that precedes the NBA draft combine. The G League Elite Camp runs from May 12-14. The NBA draft combine goes from May 15-19. Both of them will be held at Chicago’s Quest Multiplex. The NBA polls its teams, then compiles a list of players those teams want to see at the combine. The top vote-getters, usually about 60 players, get combine invites. (Last year, the NBA extended 69 invitations.) This year, the NBA extended combine invitations to top prospects; the next 40 on its list were invited to the G League Elite Camp. A few players who impress during the G League Camp will be asked to stay in Chicago to participate in the NBA draft combine. Battle tested the waters last year, participated in the NBA combine, then returned to Syracuse and announced his junior year would be his final season of college basketball. He has chosen Jay-Z’s Roc Nation to represent him as he prepares for a professional basketball career. Brissett, who finished his sophomore season with the Orange, declared for the draft while retaining an option to return to Syracuse next season. College players who declare and decide to return to school must inform their school’s athletic director and the NBA of that decision by May 29.<doc-sep>Ethan Happ was not on the list of 66 players invited to the NBA draft combine on Wednesday, but the former University of Wisconsin men’s basketball standout will still have a chance to show off his skills in front of NBA personnel. Happ was one of 80 players invited to the NBA G League Elite Camp, which will take place Sunday through Tuesday in Chicago. That list includes 40 NBA draft hopefuls and 40 of the NBA G League’s top prospects from the 2018-19 season. The NBA draft combine, a six-day event also held in Chicago, will begin Tuesday. Seven Big Ten players were invited to that combine, but Happ isn’t among them. That list includes Milwaukee native Jordan Poole and two of his Michigan teammates, Ignas Brazdeikis and Charles Matthews; Purdue’s Carsen Edwards; Maryland’s Bruno Fernando; Indiana’s Romeo Langford; and Nebraska’s Isaiah Roby. Happ was a consensus second-team All-American in his final season with the Badgers. He averaged 17.3 points, 10.1 rebounds and 4.5 assists while becoming the first player in program history to earn first-team All-Big Ten honors three times in his career. He also was named the winner of the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Award, given to the nation’s top center.<doc-sep>
The invites have been made from the G League Elite Camp to the NBA Draft Combine. According to Jonathan Givony, Iowa Hawkeyes forward has earned an invitation to the NBA Combine following his outstanding G-League combine. Cook combined to score 24 points and making 10-of-11 field-goal attempts in two NBA g-league combine games. He only turned the ball over twice, which was a big question mark for him. Although, he did commit eight fouls. 10 players advance from the @nbagleague Combine to NBA Combine: Marial Shayok- Iowa St Terence Davis- Ole Miss DaQuan Jeffries- Tulsa Cody Martin- Nevada Dewan Hernandez- Miami Tacko Fall- UCF Jared Harper- Auburn Tyler Cook- Iowa O'Shae Brissett- Syracuse Reggie Perry- Miss St — Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) May 14, 2019 The G League Elite Camp is that in 2018, no underclassmen that weren’t invited to the NBA Draft Combine were drafted in the 2018 NBA Draft. And of further interest, last year, 185 underclassmen declared for the NBA. This year, there are 175 underclassmen that have declared for early entry. Last year of the 69 NBA Draft Combine attendees, 56 were underclassmen. "Work harder," Cook said in August about the biggest lesson during his college career. "I think a lot of guys would attest to this. Coming into college as a high schooler, you think you're working hard, you think you're doing something, but you're really not what so ever. I think that's the beauty of growing up personally and as a basketball player. You find new levels of yourself and new ways you can improve and new ways you can improve yourself. I would tell myself to work harder, but I don't regret anything I went through." TODAY ONLY (5/14/2019)! New members get 80% OFF their annual subscription to HawkeyeInsider! Get the best coverage of Iowa football, basketball and recruiting for a low price! Deal expires at 9 p.m. central time! Click Here! Cook played three seasons at Iowa. He earned second-team all-Big Ten honors as a junior after leading the Hawkeyes in scoring (14.5 PPG) and rebounds (7.6 RPG). He was a high-flyer and a high-energy player during his time as a Hawkeye. He was also a key reason Iowa came back in the second half against Tennessee after trailing by 21 at half. The 6-foot-9 forward out of St. Louis decided to leave Iowa after his junior season in pursuit of his professional career.