There wasn’t a single New Yorker selected in the June 22 NBA draft. The year before, only Brooklyn’s Isaiah Whitehead, taken by the Nets in the second round, heard his name called. You have to go all the way back to 2011, when Kemba Walker of The Bronx was taken ninth overall by the Hornets, for a city prospect to go in the lottery.
It doesn’t take much research to realize The City Game has fallen on hard times recently. The NBA includes few city products and fewer impact players. But this isn’t meant to harp on the obvious. It is to illustrate the possible change on the horizon — at least in the near future.
The next three years are loaded with promise — elite players who could find their way to the green room on draft night and carve out strong careers if all goes as planned.
“I would call it a mini-renaissance,” ESPN draft and college basketball analyst Fran Fraschilla said in a phone interview. “There are promising signs based on the next couple of years in college and at the high school level.”
The city could have as many as three first-round picks next year, according to DraftExpress, the preeminent forecaster: Texas freshman Mohamed Bamba of Harlem, a 7-foot big man with freakish length (7-foot-9 wingspan and 9-foot-6 standing reach) who has improved each year, is projected fourth, followed by Kentucky jumping-jack wing Hamidou Diallo (14th) and shot-blocking teammate Nick Richards (22), a pair of Queens natives. Two other locals are predicted to be second-round selections: Arizona sophomore wing Rawle Alkins of Brooklyn and Georgetown junior center Jessie Govan of Queens.
The talent at the high school level can match it, with four highly regarded prospects: Archbishop Molloy five-star teammates Cole Anthony and Moses Brown, Christ the King center Kofi Cockburn and Bronx wing Precious Achiuwa of St. Benedict’s Prep (N.J.). All four are being recruited by the nation’s elite, and the first three have taken the road less traveled as top prospects staying home for high school.
“The common denominator is those guys played [or play] a lot of high-level basketball in high school and a lot of high-level basketball in AAU,” said Terrance “Munch” Williams, the director of the PSA Cardinals, where Bamba played and Anthony currently plays his AAU ball. “They were able to go against the best of the best. They’re playing with other guys that have the same aspirations, and spent time around guys who have the same aspirations.”
Of the names listed above, Bamba and Anthony, a rising junior guard, may have the highest ceilings, a dominant low-post threat and an athletically gifted floor general.
Bamba — who, unlike Anthony, attended high school away from home at The Westtown School (Pa.) — is best known for his shot-blocking and rebounding prowess. He has improved his offensive skills, adding a jump hook.
“He [does] everything defensively so effortlessly,” an NBA scout said. “He rebounds the ball like a grown man. He blocks shots. He runs the floor. He’s going to struggle offensively [in the NBA at the start]. Everything else is the real deal.”