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The West Virginia Mountaineers have had two high-profile draft choices enter the pros in the past three months in Bruce Irvin for football and now Kevin Jones for basketball.
In April, the Seattle Seahawks selected Bruce Irvin with the 15th pick overall in the NFL Draft. The Draft chatter about Irvin in the six months leading up to the Draft had him forecast to get drafted anywhere from the 2nd to 4th Round.
It wasn’t until the week before the Draft that we thought Irvin had a chance to get drafted at the tail end of the First Round. We put the pieces together that the San Francisco 49ers would select Irvin with their pick at the end of the 1st round (correctly as it turned out).
Irvin worked out for twelve teams before the Draft, which drove those teams into a competition with each other. The Seattle Seahawks jumped before the Jets, 49ers, or Ravens could.
Adam Zagoria reported over the weekend that Kevin Jones had a "first-round guarantee" from someone, according to Jones agent. We suggested that the team who gave Jones the guarantee was the Golden State Warriors (you can follow our logic here).
Jones now finds himself in a situation very similar to what Irvin faced going into his draft. Jones has worked out for more than a third of the League, and according to his agent, has outplayed several potential lottery picks in the process. Some of the highest profile picks, his agent said, declined to workout with Jones.
After word came out this weekend of Jones’ First Round promise, could that cause one team to jump at Jones earlier than most thought?
It’s a question to ponder this week leading up to the NBA Draft on Thursday night.
You can follow us on Twitter @WVUPros for the latest on Kevin Jones and the NBA Draft.
Editor's note: This story originally appeared on our partner site WVUPros.com