It may seem like this day has been a long time coming. In reality however it has only been a few months, five tops, that "Kelly Olynyk" and "NBA Draft" have been in the same sentence. When the season started back in November if you knew of Kelly Olynyk you knew of this Kelly Olynyk.
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| Olynyk on the bench during his three game suspension. |
If you follow the Zags you also knew of Olynyk from his pre-redshirt days. That Kelly Olynyk wasn't going to the NBA. That Kelly Olynyk averaged 5.8 points per game and 3.8 assists per game. This Kelly Olynyk averaged 17.8 points and 7.3 rebounds per game.
Draft prognosticators have Olynyk as a lock to get picked in the first round. Some say he will go in the lottery. ESPN recently had a mock draft which saw Olynyk go as the 15th pick to the Boston Celtics.
Now that he's gone I can say, without feeling like some sort of anti-fan, he made a good decision. Recent players who have stayed for an extra year have hurt their draft stock. Players like Ohio State's Jared Sullenger have fallen from projected spots due to spending an extra year in college. This season, North Texas' Tony Mitchell significantly damaged his stock with a sub-par season.
As far as Zags in the NBA go, Olynyk becomes only the third to declare early. Adam Morrison did so, with perfectly good reason, after his astonishing junior campaign. Austin Daye, who is the only Zag I have any sort of animosity towards (entirely because of his two-and-done mindset), left after his sophomore season.
I'm not sure if having players declare early is a good or bad sign for a program. On one hand, in Kelly's case, this shows the coaches' ability to develop unknowns into superstars. On the other, it hurts the program in the short term (next season). How much will it hurt Gonzaga? Well, I'll get to that in a separate post, but let's just say I'm optimistic.
Anyways, best of luck Mr. Olynyk! Make us WCC fans proud. Hopefully you end up in Portland like that one mock draft I saw.
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