NBA Draft 2018 Rumors: Could Oklahoma's Trae Young Turn Into the Steal of the First Round?
For a stretch of time during this college basketball soon, Oklahoma Sooners guard Trae Young looked like he was the best player in the country.
Young was scorching nets left and right, and it appeared as though he could pull up from anywhere on the court and still hit his shot.
Then, Young and his team started to struggle, and the freshman who previously looked invincible was now starting to look lost.
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The Sooners' season ended earlier this month, with them falling to the Rhode Island Rams. Young put up 28 points on 9–18 shooting to go with seven assists and six turnovers in that game.
Now, Young has stated that he will enter the upcoming NBA draft, and the time has come for teams in the league to make their decisions on just how good they think the 19-year-old point guard can become.
Obviously, NBA teams are keeping their evaluations close to the vest, so it's hard to tell what they think of Young, but what's interesting is that some analysts seem to think that he is closer to a potential role player and possible starter as opposed to a superstar.
CBS Sports' Reid Forgrave has Young being taken 11th overall, while Bleacher Report's Zach Buckley has him going a spot lower at 12th.
Typically, players taken at that portion of that draft are not expected to be superstars, so it's a bit interesting to see Young's name there.
Young's dip in the mock drafts could be due to some other college players emerging later in this season and also fans and analysts souring on his superstar potential after he struggled for a significant stretch of the year.
Maybe Young was never supposed to be in the running to be a top-five pick anyway, but he probably shouldn't fall out of the lottery altogether either.
Should Young's stock continue to tumble throughout the evaluation and scouting process, the chances of him turning into the steal of this upcoming draft will only increase.
It's possible that Young could turn out to be the 2018 NBA draft's version of Devin Booker.
Booker was taken 13th overall by the Phoenix Suns when he came out in 2015, and at the time, that seemed like the right spot for him since he was a good but not great player for the Kentucky Wildcats.
Since then, Booker has flashed the potential to be a superstar in the NBA, and even now, he's already one of the best scorers in the league.
Young could end up following in Booker's footsteps.
It will help Young that shooting is more important in the NBA now than it has ever been in the past, so as long as he can keep replicating that sweet stroke of his, then he will have a place in the league.
There's a chance that Young will be a late lottery pick in this year's NBA draft, and there's also a chance that there will be a team thankful he ended up falling to them.
More news about the upcoming NBA draft should be made available soon.
