8 college basketball stars who will be 2019 NBA Draft steals

1. Grant Williams, Tennessee

If you’re looking for a productive college basketball player in the NBA Draft, there aren’t many that did more in their collegiate career than Tennessee forward Grant Williams. Williams was a unanimous All American as a junior and was named the SEC’s Player of the Year twice, showcasing his ability to dominate the college basketball world.

The Volunteers were one of the nation’s best teams this season, spending a significant part of the campaign atop the polls, largely due to the dynamic duo of Williams and Admiral Schofield. Williams averaged 18.8 points per game and 7.5 rebounds per game for the Volunteers, and opposing teams had to account for him in their game plans.

There is a lot to like with Williams, who is one of the most competitive players in this draft class. Williams doesn’t have one truly dominant trait, like Ty Jerome’s shooting stroke or Tacko Fall’s rim protection, but he excels at a lot of things with a chance to be very good in several areas.

The big knock on Williams is his size, which is 6’8″ with a 6’10” wingspan, and he plays at 240 pounds. That makes Williams a bit of a tweener at the next level, and teams are rightly concerned about whether he fits best as a small ball four or a slightly bigger three.

There were similar concerns with Draymond Green when he came out of college, and he fell to the second round before being picked by Golden State, where he has emerged as one of the NBA’s best players. No one is saying Grant Williams is going to be the next Draymond Green, but he is definitely being undervalued based on his projected draft position in the late first round.