Aaron Bracy of PhilaHoops.com spoke to Maalik Wayns today about his decision to enter his name in the NBA draft pool. There are no huge revelations about the situation, but Wayns did reveal a little bit of insight into the thought process. You can read more over at PhilaHoops, but here are some highlights:
- Wayns: "I love Villanova. I had the best three years of my life and if I come back for a fourth year it’s even gravy."
- Wayns: "I think it’s just good timing, I’m a junior. I had a lot of milestones. Coach (Jay Wright) and I agreed it was time to see where I was at."
- The decision had nothing to do with the Wildcats' disappointing season.
- While the NBA was in the back of his mind, Wayns was more concerned about getting out of a downhill spiral with the team. "I wasn’t really thinking about the NBA during the season."
- Since there aren't likely going to be opportunities to work out before the NCAA tournament ends, Wayns will spend the next three weeks working out on campus.
- Wayns: "I still have to get a lot better at a lot of things, my jump shot, be more of a leader, be more vocal."
Philly.com's Mike Kern also spoke to Wayns about his decision. In that interview, Wayns wouldn't commit to saying where he would play next season:
"I think it's too up in the air right now," the Roman Catholic product said at the Davis Center practice facility. "I don't want to predetermine [anything].
"A lot of things factor into it. Part of me says it's time to move on, start taking care of my family, just being a man. And there's a part of me that never wants to leave Villanova. I put all my time and effort into coming here, committed when I was a sophomore in high school, never wavered or anything. I had a great 3 years. But at this point in my career it made sense for me to do this."
. . .
"I'm going to see what type of feedback we get. If it's good, then I'll make my next decision. If you have that much confidence in yourself that you can do it, it doesn't matter. There's a harder way to do it, but guys have done it. I'm not saying that's what I'm going to do, but it's definitely something to look into, even if you can't be a first-round pick."
According to his coach from Roman Catholic, as well as Kern's report, Wayns is ahead of schedule on his academics and wouldn't require another full year in school in order to attain his degree. That may make the decision to leave much easier — even if he were to go undrafted, his out-of-pocket cost to finish his studies later might not be so high.
According to the DelcoTimes, two NBA sources said that they believed that Wayns would be selected in the second round. With more and more teams using second-round picks to take chances on foreign players in need of development, a second-round grade is not quite a comforting evaluation.