Yante Maten declares for draft, but doesn't hire agent

Oof. Gut punch to those who are expecting better things out of our team next year... If he remains committed to the draft, Fox is most definitely on borrowed time.

Random story that I just feel like plugging in:

One time Yante sent out a class google doc in my friend's class before the test. Said friend got really hype because he thought Yaten had done some work and was trying to help out the class. He opens the google doc just to see it was blank and said, "Fill in your answers to the study guide".

So maybe the whole school thing isn't for him.

quote:

---

if he leaves, we're like a 10-win team right?

---

We won't be THAT bad, but we were a 19 win team this year with 2 All-SEC players in Yante and JJ, so if both of them are gone next year...

yeah, it won't be good. Probably won't make the NIT and Fox would presumably be gone.

Ouch.

Ears won't have nearly a fight to fire Fox next year when we win <15 games.

Chad Ford has him ranked as the #56 draft prospect in his latest Top 100. In the player analysis from the March 6th Update, ESPN said:

quote:

---

Mar 6 Update: Maten has drawn a lot of interest from scouts who see his ability to both score, rebound and shoot the three. He's one of the most underrated players in the country and a number of teams now have him ranked firmly in the first round.

---

Here's a LINK to the ESPN profile on it. I believe you will need an Insider account to access. With all that said, I still think he is going to mostly grade out as a late second round pick with a good chance to come back to UGA.

quote:

---

Not really. He's a junior, so there's no reason for him not to at least test the waters. Every single junior with even a remote chance to play in the NBA should do it (you're only allowed to declare w/o hiring an agent once).

He'll probably be valued as a late 2nd rounder/undrafted and come back for his senior season. I'm not worried yet.

---

As noted "if he remains committed to the draft". Probably could have re-arranged the order a bit, but obviously no real impact if he doesn't. Of note in the article, Fox has previously had 3 players declare early for the draft, and all of them went. What I can't recall, is how long the ability to declare and back out has been available... I *think* that's a bit of misleading in the article since that rule change was introduced maybe last year?

I would bet that he returns. He isn't explosive enough to play the three in the Pro's and I would worry about his size to be a really great PF. He is a good shooter from college range but it's really unknown from NBA range. He'll develop but I still don't see him being a first rounder.

That said, he is great in 1-on-1 matchups. Probably was last year we weren't good enough across the board to get those for him on a consistent basis and he was still dominant.

quote:

---

I believe underclassmen had until mid-April to withdraw to remain eligible, but juniors can go through the draft, as long as they enroll in school in time for the fall semester.

The deadline for entering the draft is end of April

---

Sorry was referring to when the rule change was introduced, looks like it was 2016:
LINK /