Indiana fans can look for All-Big Ten center Kel’el Ware at the 2024 NBA Draft next week.
It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Mike Woodson there with him.
Widely expected to be a first round draft choice, Ware was invited to the NBA Draft green room, Jonathan Givony of ESPN reported on Wednesday.
The green room is an area in front of the NBA draft podium where players wait for their named to be called by the league commissioner, Adam Silver. The players are typically joined at tables by their, families, former coaches and agents. They can invite up to 10 guests.
The players in the green room are often captured by television cameras during the draft. That can lead to tense moments, and good publicity for college programs like Indiana.
An invitation to the green room is a positive sign for a player’s draft stock, although there have been instances in the past of players falling to the second round while they wait.
The invite is the latest indication Ware will be selected in the first round. And this latest signal has more weight behind it than mock drafts produced by media outlets.
The determination of which players are invited to the green room involves communication with the front offices of teams picking in the first round. Those teams are asked to vote on the 25 players whose names they expect to hear called first. This is to help avoid players sitting for a long time in front of the national television audience as the second round nears.
Wherever Ware is selected, it will mark two years in a row that an IU center was taken in the draft. Trayce Jackson-Davis went to the Golden State Warriors in the second round (57th overall) a year ago, and he ended up finishing 11th in the league’s All-Rookie team voting.
A North Little Rock, Ark. native, Ware averaged a team-best 16.1 points (11th in the Big Ten), 9.8 rebounds (2nd), and 1.9 blocks (5th) per game while shooting 59.9% (178-of-297) from the field and 44.7% (17-of-38) from behind the arc.
Ware posted a program-high 14 double-doubles, eight 20-point, 10-rebound games, 18 multi-block outings, and shot 65.0% or better on at least eight made buckets in 11 games.
The 2024 NBA Draft begins next Wednesday, June 26, in Brooklyn, N.Y.
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