NBA Draft Rumors: Zion for Scoot trade, Top 50 prospect withdraws, green room invites
NBA Draft Rumors: Bobi Klintman withdraws, will play in NBL
The deadline for college basketball players who chose early entry into the 2023 NBA Draft to withdraw their names from the draft and return to school passed a couple of weeks ago. So most everyone assumed that the list of available prospects in the draft was essentially set in stone.
That, however, turned out to not be the case.
Bobi Klintman, a 6-foot-10 forward out of Wake Forest, withdrew his name from the 2023 NBA Draft on Monday. With the deadline passed, he won’t return to school but, instead, will go to Australia to play for the Cairns Taipans in the NBL as part of the league’s Next Stars program, as reported by ESPN’s Jonathan Givony.
NEWS: 6'10 Swedish wing Bobi Klintman has signed with the Cairns Taipans as part of the NBL Next Stars program, he told ESPN. 12 NBA teams came to watch Klintman working out in LA and Miami this spring, but ultimately he elected to bet on himself in advance of the 2024 NBA Draft. pic.twitter.com/KFYKfFSXAG
— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) June 12, 2023
The Swedish big man, as Givony noted, had plenty of interest around the league and was the No. 44 overall prospect in FanSided’s Christopher Kline’s final Big Board for this year’s draft. Here’s what Kline said about the Wake Forest product.
"Sporadic playing time at Wake Forest limited Bobi Klintman’s exposure to national audiences. He has a ways to go developmentally and he’s already 20 years old as a freshman. That said, fluid 6-foot-10 athletes who can grab-and-go in transition, navigate traffic off the bounce, and shoot the 3 aren’t easy to find. His upside is significant."
There was a belief that Klintman could’ve returned to the Demon Deacons for the 2023-24 to elevate his stock and develop further. Now he’s taking a gamble on his talent as he heads to Australia to secure that development in hopes of becoming an even more major prospect for the 2024 NBA Draft.