Although Keita Bates-Diop was widely expected to declare for the 2018 NBA draft, as he did during a press conference at Ohio State on Monday, that didn’t make his decision to do so easy.
While Bates-Diop ultimately made the decision that he felt was best for his future – an assessment that is easy to agree with, given that he already has his degree from Ohio State and is coming off a Big Ten Player of the Year season – choosing to leave Ohio State when he could have stayed for one more year was still a difficult decision for him to make.