Kyle Guy, De'Andre Hunter and Ty Jerome celebrate Virginia Cavaliers winning NCAA National Championship.
The Cleveland Cavaliers own the No. 5 pick and the No. 26 pick in tonight’s NBA Draft.
Versatile forward, De’Andre Hunter is projected on many draft boards to be selected fifth by Cleveland.
Rightly so.
A 6’7”, 225-pound wing player, Hunter helped lead the Virginia Cavaliers’ National Championship team, Hunter posted 15 points and 5.1 rebounds in his sophomore season in Charlottesville, Va.
A consensus Third-Team All-American, 2018-19 NABC Defensive Player of the Year, All-ACC First-Team honoree and 2018-19 ACC Defensive Player of the Year, Hunter is believed to be one of the best two-way players who will have their name called tonight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Check this out: Hunter’s best friend is Virginia Cavalier guard, Ty Jerome. Jerome was intergral to Virginia’s National Championsip run.
For those tardy to the party: The New York native averaged 16.9 points, six assists, 5.2 rebounds, 1.5 steals in the tournament while only coughing up 1.5 turnovers per contest.
The coup de grace in it all is that Jerome shot an impressive 40.4% from downtown.
Here’s the double irony: Both Jerome and Hunter are projected to be first rounders and the two Virginia Cavaliers could end up being drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Million Dollar Question: How cool would it be for the Cleveland Cavaliers to draft Hunter and Jerome?
“Honestly that would be unreal,” Ty Jerome told Scoop B Radio yesterday at the Conversion Sports & Entertainment Hospitality Suite in Manhattan.
Conversion Sports gifted Jerome and other draftees with products from FitBit, Build A Head, LUFT, The Art of Shaving, Sean John, Equinox, JetSet and JP5.
Cleveland potentially drafting both players would be a dream come true for Ty Jerome. “Being able to team up with him would be an unbelievable experience,” Ty Jerome said of De’Andre Hunter.
“Going through the NBA experience with your best friend would be unbelievable.”
Teammates from college being drafted as NBA teammates is not really a thing. But college teammates reunited in the NBA is not necessarily ‘a thing.’
As noted by Daily Progress: This past season, former Michigan guards Tim Hardaway Jr. and Trey Burke suited up for the New York Knicks, before both were traded to the Dallas Mavericks. On the Boston Celtics, former Cal players Jaylen Brown and Jabari Bird shared a locker room, as did old UConn teammates Kemba Walker and Jeremy Lamb on the Charlotte Hornets. In total, nine NBA teams last season featured former college teammates.
The Cavs hired head coach, John Beilein from Michigan and they’re looking to make some noise by developing culture and identity with a young core after winning an NBA championship in 2016.
“At 5 or 26, we’re going to get two really good players,”Beilein said after the NBA Draft Lottery in Chicago.
“I’ve gone down the list and I’ve played against many of those guys or I watched them play on TV or I saw them in AAU.”
“I’ve been to Cleveland a few times,” Ty Jerome told Scoop B Radio.
“It’s definetely better than what people give it credit for. They’re building a program, they have a vision for it.”