The NBA’s early-entry deadline for the 2022 draft elapsed Sunday night, finalizing the pool of eligible players as the predraft process begins in earnest. As I see it, there were no massive surprises this year in terms of college prospects deciding to test or return to school, but per usual, some intriguing names opted to defer their draft decisions to next season.
A few players I’d originally earmarked as candidates for this column chose to test the waters—Iowa’s Kris Murray, Arizona’s Dalen Terry, and Toledo’s Ryan Rollins to name a few—which technically leaves the door open for an NBA exit, thus making them and others ineligible for this particular column.