High riser
Bouknight a likely NBA lottery pick in Thursday’s draft
To get to Barclays Center from James Bouknight’s home in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, travel down Schenectady Avenue, take a righthand turn at the Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, then another quick right onto Troy Avenue, followed by a left onto the Eastern Parkway.
A couple of miles later, at the Grand Army Plaza, the parkway turns into Flatbush Avenue, and it’s a straight shot to Barclays Center — home of the Brooklyn Nets and, more to the point, the 2021 NBA Draft.
All told, it’s about a 3.8-mile, 20-minute ride by car. For Bouknight, it’s a journey that’s taken nearly 21 years — from a skinny kid whose early dreams were playing shortstop for the Yankees before taking up basketball in high school, to one of the top collegiate players in the country at UConn this past season and a likely lottery pick on Thursday night.
He could be the first Brooklynite taken in the draft’s top 10 since Stephon Marbury in 1996. The first drafted at all since Isaiah Whitehead, a second-round pick five years ago. Certainly the first Brooklyn product ever to be taken in the first round at Barclays Center.
That’s the romantic story, anyway. In truth, James Bouknight is more than just Brooklyn. His grandmother and other family members and friends live in Manhattan, near 16th and 9th avenues. He attended La Salle Academy in lower Manhattan his first three years of high
school before transferring to MacDuffie School in Granby, Massachusetts.
“He kind of identifies with lower Manhattan,” Bouknight’s agent, Nick Blatchford, explained to Hearst Connecticut Media. “All his friends are in Manhattan. So, he kind of has a dual-identity as a New Yorker. He doesn’t primarily identify with Brooklyn, but more generally with New York.”
Bouknight, who politely referred all questions for this story to Blatchford, is about to go nationwide. Speculation, mock drafts and conventional wisdom have him being taken almost assuredly within the first 14 picks as a lottery selection.
“He’s been working really hard, he’s gotten better, he’s added 10 pounds,” Blatchford noted. “He had a pretty special performance at the Pro Day (on June 26 in Chicago), and he’s carried that momentum into his workouts and performed very, very well, and put himself in a position, I think, to go in the top 10.”
UConn coach Dan Hurley agrees. “I mean, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, maybe eighth he gets to?,” Hurley pondered.
That seems to be the consensus. SI.com’s mock draft has Bouknight going to Oklahoma City with the No. 6 overall pick. NBADraft.net currently has him going No. 7 to Golden State, with whom the 6-foot-5 guard worked out earlier this week. NBA.com has him going eighth to Orlando.
“I’m fairly bullish on him,” an NBA Eastern Conference scout, who has watched Bouknight play a lot and done extensive background work on him, told Hearst Connecticut Media. “I think he’s worthy of a lottery pick in this draft.”
If that’s the case, Bouknight will be UConn’s first lottery pick since 2012, when Andre Drummond was selected ninth overall and Jeremy Lamb 12th. That would earn Bouknight his own banner, reserved for UConn’s lottery picks, inside the Werth Family Champions Center practice gym.
Hurley is understandably beaming with pride about Bouknight, who arrived in Storrs a relatively unheralded recruit two summers ago, found himself in legal court before he even stepped on Gampel Pavilion’s court, matured greatly and emerged as a bona fide star.
Hurley and assistant coach Kimani Young, the Queens native who’s as interwoven with New York basketball as anyone, will be at the NBA Players Association’s Top 100 camp in Orlando, Florida on Thursday. They’ll be watching some of the best players in the nation, including recent commit Donovan Clingan, the 7footer from Bristol.
But they will leave the event early on Thursday afternoon and hop on a plane to New York to join Bouknight, who will be in the green room among other likely lottery picks, along with family, friends and other former coaches.
“Absolutely, we wouldn’t miss that, are you kidding me?,” Hurley asked, rhetorically. “That kid came in as barely a top-75 player. Two years later ... I don’t think he’ll get past eight. Maybe 10, max.”
That would mean a guaranteed contract between about $7-10 million over the next two years, with options the following two years that could push his earnings to over $20 million before looking for a second contract.
Not bad for a former shortstop.
‘HE DID EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO PREPARE HIMSELF’
Bouknight’s eventful two seasons in Storrs have been well-chronicled.
The arrest following a series of bad decisions on campus in September, 2019, suspended for the Huskies’ first three games of the season.
The impressive debut at the Charleston Classic that November, where his smooth scoring skills and dynamic athleticism were unveiled to the public for the first time. The incredible, one-handed alleyoop slam at ECU and the overall impressive freshman season, averaging 13 points per game.
The 40-point, “here-I-am” breakout performance against Creighton last December. The freak elbow injury a couple of weeks later that led to a six-week absence seemingly shrouded in secrecy. The incredible put-back slam in his return to action in February against Providence. The cramping issues and overall inconsistent play the rest of the season, capped by disappointing performances against Creighton in the Big East championship game and Maryland in the NCAA tournament.
Those shaky performances, coupled with 29-percent 3-point shooting on the season, led many people to question his March 31 decision to declare for the NBA Draft. Hurley, for one, was never one of those people, understanding that Bouknight’s poor shooting this season could largely be attributed to his elbow injury and other issues that affected him this season, and that his overall athleticism, skill level, maturity and work ethic trumped all.
“I think the injury stuff this year set him back and made it a little bit harder to evaluate him,” the Eastern Conference scout said, “because you’ve got the COVID pauses, he gets hurt later in the year, so he really didn’t get in any rhythm. But he’s incredibly talented, a big-time athlete (who) probably doesn’t get enough credit for that.”
At the NBA Pro Day on June 26 in Chicago, Bouknight put on a dazzling shooting display that reassured some doubters.
“I don’t think you’re gonna find too many people that think James Bouknight is gonnna be a 29-percent shooter,” the scout added. “I think evaluators seeing him in person, hitting shots, seeing the stroke up close and the mechanics being sound, I think that helps.”
“He shot the ball tremendously well, came out as one of the better guys from the Pro Day, measured in well,” added Terrence “Munch” Williams, who coached Bouknight with the vaunted PSA Cardinals AAU program. “He passed everything with flying colors.”
Williams can only dream that Bouknight gets selected by Orlando, where he would be reunited with two other former PSA Cardinals — Cole Anthony and Mo Bamba. But Williams added that Bouknight doesn’t have any preference where he’s going — even to the Knicks (who currently pick at No. 19 and 21) or Nets (No. 27).
“He understands it’s not necessarily in his control,” Williams said. “So, at the end of the day, he’ll just be fortunate to get drafted, be fortunate to get a contract, and put your head down and work. I don’t think he’s saying, ‘Hey, I need to go here, I want to go here.’ He wants the opportunity to come in and play, but ultimately the goal is making the NBA now.”
Of course, Bouknight’s ascension up the NBA draft board isn’t solely based on one shooting performance at Pro Day.
“I’ve been around a lot of young players saying, ‘I want to be the hardest worker, I want to make the sacrifices,’” said Blatchford. “Then you get into the work and it doesn’t always happen. With him, not only has it happened, it’s been really impressive to see how much he continues to grow and learn and dedicate himself to every aspect of this. As we’ve got to this point, the workouts and the Pro Day, he did everything possible to prepare himself. Then, you let the results take care of themselves, and he’s done that.”
So what kind of a pro will Bouknight be? One common comparison being made is Zach LaVine, the Chicago Bulls’ dynamic guard. The NBA scout agreed.
“He’s not the type of nuclear, all-world athlete that Zach is, but he’s probably a little bit more polished, in terms of his overall skills, than Zach was at the same age,” he said. “He’s got a chance to be a pretty special offensive player.”
But the scout added that it’s hard to predict what type of career Bouknight might have.
“With a guy like him, I think the range of outcomes is really wide. I think the high-end upside with him is really good. You could be looking at somebody in a Zach Levine mold, or maybe a Devin Booker-type role. A score-first, off-guard who can handle the ball but isn’t going to significantly make the lives of their teammates better.”
“His upside is high,” the scout added, “but I could see him being also being an off-the-bench scorer, sparkplug-type guy. Maybe in a similar role as a Jeremy Lamb. It’s tough to pinpoint which end of the spectrum he’s going to end up on.”
That road from Crown Heights — or Manhattan, or UConn — takes James Bouknight to Barclays Center on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn on Thursday night. A brand-new road begins after that, one that could branch off in numerous different directions, but one that was hard to envision just a couple of summers ago.