The countdown to decision day has begun for Jeremy Fears Jr.
In three days, the deadline for college players to withdraw from the NBA draft will be upon us and that means that Fears will have to decide if he wants to return to Michigan State or leave for a shot at the league. He mentioned during the NBA Combine interviews that it would take a first-round grade to really wrestle him away from Michigan State, but I haven’t seen a single mock with him going in round one.
Heck, I’ve only seen one mock draft with him mentioned, which I think is crazy. I do believe that Fears has first-round potential, but he still has some major areas to work on (shooting).
If he does decide to remain in the draft, the earliest he would probably go is the middle of the second round, and that doesn’t even guarantee him a roster spot and he’d take a pay cut.
So where is he projected according to the latest mocks?
Well, Bleacher Report has one of the more respected mocks by Jonathan Wasserman and he posted his latest update a couple of days ago. He did an entire two-round mock with 60 projected picks and not one of them was Jeremy Fears Jr.
This should be a pretty good indication that it’s pretty likely that Fears is going to be a second-round prospect, at best, if he leaves this offseason. If he leaves next year, that would likely change. He needs to add a consistent jumper, maybe cut down on some sloppy turnovers, and he even said that he wants to tighten up defensively. He can do all of that in East Lansing instead of the G-League.
The choice may be obvious to us, but Fears’ dream is to play in the NBA and when you’re this close, it’s hard to turn away. I do believe that he’ll ultimately make the right decision.
Two NBA workouts may have hinted at a Jeremy Fears Jr. return
At least publicly, Fears has only had a couple of NBA workouts and the teams that he reportedly worked out for don’t have a pick in the range that he would even have a chance to go in the first round or even early in the second.
The Washington Wizards have the No. 1 pick (spoiler: Fears isn’t going No. 1) and two picks late in the second round in the 50-60 range. The Milwaukee Bucks pick No. 10 (he’s also not going there).
So the two teams that he had workouts with are not going to select him with their first-round picks unless they decide to trade back and maybe land a later first-round pick and an early-second, but that’s too many variables to rely on just to stay in the draft.
Fears would benefit from another year in East Lansing as the best point guard in college basketball, but that’s just what I think. The only person who knows what Fears is going to do is Jeremy himself.
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