The Wake Forest star will move on to the next phase of his career.
John Collins declared for the NBA Draft on March 22nd to explore the option of going pro or coming back for another year at Wake Forest. Today he put an end to all the speculation when he hired an agent, which ends his collegiate eligibility and makes him eligible for the NBA Draft.
I will forever bleed old gold and black. #GoDeacs pic.twitter.com/MgBBRxaKFm
— ?? John Collins ?? (@Jc__20_) April 13, 2017
Congratulations to John, as years of hard work towards his dream is finally paying off in the best way possible. He came to Wake Forest as an extremely underrated recruit out of the state of Florida, and averaged 7 PPG & 3 RPG his freshman year.
His sophomore year was nothing short of a remarkable transformation, averaging 19 PPG and 9.8 RPG, winning the ACC’s Most Improved Player award, and finishing second in the ACC Player of the Year voting.
He helped Wake Forest to a 19-14 record and its first NCAA Tournament since 2010, where it fell to Kansas State in the First Four.
The big man is currently a fringe lottery pick, with a couple of sites having him as high as 10th in the upcoming draft. His efficiency, ability rebound, youth, and potential is what is most appealing about him at this juncture.
The feedback that he has received since March 22nd must have been pretty optimistic and positive, as Collins could have waited to go through the NBA Combine and team workouts before making a decision. This tends to make me think that he is looking more at the lottery as opposed to the latter part of the First Round.
Going ahead and hiring an agent now will allow him to focus solely on his professional ambitions and get to where he needs to be to enter the NBA.
While we at Blogger So Dear obviously wish he had come back for at least one more year, we wish him absolutely nothing but the best on and off the court moving forward. He has been an absolute honor to watch live. His demeanor with which he plays the game is very similar to another big man who came onto Wake Forest’s campus about 20 years ago with little fanfare.
We will have continuous coverage when the time comes of his NBA Draft preparation and potential team fits, but in the meanwhile we will simply celebrate the time he donned the Old Gold and Black and tell him thank you for his hard work!
