PHOTO/Randy Renner
After a lot of draft night speculation about possible trades the Thunder kept all their roster players, dropped back a couple of spots in the draft and selected a "prep-to-pro" small forward Darius Bazley. He's from Princeton (the high school in Ohio, not the University in New Jersey) who decided to skip college and accept a lucrative ($1 million) internship with the New Balance shoe company and aim toward the NBA.
Bazley was a five-star prospect, a McDonald's All-American and Jordan Brand Classic invitee out of High School in 2018. He was rated as the No. 23 overall recruit in 2018 by 247sports.com and was headed to Syracuse before he signed with Klutch Sports and gained the internship/endorsement deal with New Balance.
Bazley looks like he could probably help the Thunder in the Thunder and maybe the OKC Blue this coming season but his selection, with other more prominent and NBA ready players still on the board is a bit of a mystery and because the Thunder traded places with Memphis and the deal hadn't officially been approved by the NBA, Sam Presti couldn't say anything about why he and the organization went specifically with Bazley.
Presti was able to talk about the draft in general and other issues. His full news conference is below.
Here are some highlights from Bazley in high school.