Brice Cherry: NBA success by former Bears growing momentum by the day

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.

If you operate a law school, it helps build your enrollment if youre routinely turning out successful attorneys.

If you run a culinary school, its a rather sweet treat when you can point to all the James Beard Award-winning chefs your school has produced.

And so it goes for college basketball programs.

Nothing advertises your program any better than high-level NBA guys who came through your system.

In that regard, Baylor is generating some excellent NBA marketing these days.

Back in 2018, I wrote that we were living in the Golden Age of Baylors NBA production.

Well, gold prices from Scott Drews program have only skyrocketed since then.

Debate if you want, but Baylor has never had more NBA players filling significant roles than right now.

And guess what? Its only going to get better.

Since the Bears 2021 NCAA championship, Drew has managed to land more one-and-done, five-star prospects in his recruiting classes.

Baylors reputation for churning out pros has a long way to go to match the likes of Kentucky, Duke or North Carolina, but its gaining steam by the year.

The NBA is a league full of sick highlights, with freakishly talented athletes baptizing defenders with dunks so demonic that they make the Holy Spirit temporarily leave those players bodies.

Well, more than ever, you can find more sic-em dunks among those sick highlights.

Yves Missi just won the NBAs Western Conference Rookie of the Month Award, and recently climbed to second place in betting odds to win the leagues Rookie of the Year honor.

The 20-year-old center from Cameroon figured to fit in well in the ultra-athletic NBA, given that he reached heights in Baylors weight room that strength coach Charlie Melton says may never be touched again.

(Yeah, Yves can really get up.) I think Yves is one of those guys whose progression since high school has been straight vertical, Baylor head coach Scott Drew said.

Thats because of his desire to work, his desire to be coached, to get better.

With that, he does everything a pro does, takes care of his body, gets rest.

A really quick learner.

...

At the end of the day, the best ability is availability.

Hes done a great job in that area.

Missi is far from alone in Baylor dudes making a heavy impact for their NBA employers.

Veteran Suns forward Royce ONeale, 31, is in the midst of arguably his best season.

Always a valuable glue guy, ONeale has stepped up his scoring, averaging a career-high 10.5 points while hitting 44.1% from 3-point range.

(His 3-point accuracy ranks 13th in the league).

Another guy swishing through the season is Taurean Prince.

The 30-year-old Bucks forward actually led the league for a while this season in 3-point percentage, and is still knocking down a crisp 45.4% of his outside shots, which ranks fourth in the league behind Nikola Jokic (49.2%), Caris LeVert (47.1) and DeAndre Hunter (45.7).

Lord knows nobody has ever explained what a rebound is any more succinctly (and sarcastically) than Prince, and his 4.0-rebounding average marks his best output since the 2020 season.

Taurean Prince | Scoring Highlights | January 2024 | LA Lakers // via Intuition Hoops Two on YouTube Davion Mitchell is providing solid court leadership for the Raptors off the bench, including averaging a career-high 4.8 assists per game, after three years as DeAaron Foxs backup with the Sacramento Kings.

With Toronto, Mitchell has the chance to mentor another Baylor guard in rookie JaKobe Walter, the teams first-round pick in last summers Draft.

Walter has been slowly progressing to the NBA game, averaging 8.5 points in just over 20 minutes per contest.

But the 20-year-old guard showed a glimpse of his delicious potential when he erupted for 27 points, hitting 6 of 11 from 3-point range, against the Rockets on Dec.

22.

Jeremy Sochan, a 2022 lottery pick, has averaged double-digit scoring in each of his three years in the league.

But after a failed experiment as the Spurs point guard last season, Sochan looks more comfortable than ever playing alongside future Hall of Famer Chris Paul, who knows how to get guys easy buckets.

Sochan is averaging 13.9 points per game on 52.4% shooting, as a frequent alley-oop lob partner on passes from CP3 and Victor Wembanyama.

(Sochan is also channeling his inner Worm, as no player since Dennis Rodman has made the multicolored hair look work any better than he has.) Utah Jazz guard Keyonte George is averaging more than 15 points and 5 assists in his second NBA season.

Keyonte George still needs to get more efficient with his shooting.

But the second-year Utah Jazz point guard has true star potential, and is putting up 15.8 points and 5.7 assists per game this year.

George also delivered one of the candidates for Dunk of the Year with a one-handed flush over Detroit center Jalen Duren last month, a dunk so evil it should have landed George a starring role in Wicked.

For Baylor basketball and Baylor University to turn on so many NBA games and not only see our guys playing but being leading scorers, second-leading scorers, starters, whatever it is, theyre all contributing.

Theyre really playing well.

Thats exciting, Drew said.

Second of all, all of the recruits and everyone out there know, man, they came from Baylor, and thats great publicity for us.

Oh, no question.

Anytime you can point to the TV and say, See that guy? He got better while he was here, and now hes tearing it up in the NBA, it serves as a handy recruiting tool.

Guys want to get to the league.

The more success stories a program can turn out, the more NBA-level athletes and prospects it will attract.

Its a cycle that builds on itself.

Remember when I said its only going to get better for Baylor? Thats partially because of that ever-growing momentum we just discussed.

But its also because of VJ Edgecombe, who will undoubtedly be bouncing off to the league next summer.

Baylors 6-4 freshman guard is the latest one-and-done prospect Drew has brought in.

Hes similar to last years Big 12 Freshman of the Year Walter in his humility and his willingness to grind to impact a game in ways other than scoring.

San Antonio Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan saves the ball from going out of bounds in a game against the Knicks.

But where VJ is different from Walter, George, Sochan and just about anyone Baylor has ever produced is in his elite-level athleticism.

Gravity has no hold on Edgecombe, who falls out of bed, then drops out of the sky and churns out YouTube-quality dunks and blocked shots.

(I really should tell my friend and Sunday School co-teacher Lorin Matthews, the chair of the physics department at Baylor, that she should prepare a lecture on VJs physics-defying exploits).

Unless George or Missi perhaps beat him to it, I have a feeling that Edgecombe will likely be Drews first NBA All-Star someday.

Hes got that kind of talent.

I compare him to Anthony Edwards, the 23-year-old highlight machine for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

VJ has that same kind of bounce (with a higher level of humility than Ant-Man, methinks).

When asked Thursday if Baylors growing reputation as a producer of NBA players played a factor in his signing with the Bears, Edgecombe furrowed his brow and replied matter-of-factly, though politely.

Ill be honest, for me, I try not to pay attention to that stuff, Edgecombe said.

At the end of the day, you cant skip steps in the process.

I feel like when you try to skip a step, youre going to fall and youre going to be set back, stuff like that.

So, I try not to pay attention to how much NBA guys they produce, they develop.

Its there.

Coach Drew develops, Baylor develops.

But Im not really focused on that.

I feel like everything comes with winning, man.

And I just want to see all my teammates succeed in life.

Thats the main thing for me.

VJ definitely needs to work on his outside shot if he wants to truly maximize his NBA potential.

But hell get there.

Consider this: Hes hitting 30.4% of his 3s this season for the Bears.

In Edwards one season at the University of Georgia, he hit 29.4%.

Now Edwards is knocking down nearly 41% of his 3-point shots as an NBA All-Star and Olympic gold medalist, and getting the call at end-of-game buzzer-beating situations.

(As I recently experienced firsthand when he knocked in a game-winning 3 to beat my Rockets.

Not that Im bitter about it or anything.) Baylors next NBA All-Star wont only be Drews first, itll be a first for the program, too.

While the Bears have produced a number of really good pros over the years, including Vinnie the Microwave Johnson, Terry Teagle, Micheal Williams and David Wesley, the only All-Star representation the program has ever produced has come in the Rising Stars game, courtesy of Sochan and George.

What Scott Drews players all seem to have in common is their willingness to work.

None of these guys came to Waco as a finished product, and theyve continued to toil away and hustle and get better as the years have gone on.

Thats good news for the likes of Jared Butler, the 2021 championship hero who is playing limited minutes with the Washington Wizards, as well as players like Adam Flagler, Jalen Bridges and RayJ Dennis who are paying their dues in the G-League on two-way contracts.

Kendall Brown is another G-League guy who figures to get another shot to stick on an NBA roster, as he is currently averaging 16.2 points and 5.8 rebounds per game for the Long Island Nets.

For that matter, while Edgecombe is a likely lottery pick, Baylors current roster features several other NBA prospects.

Norchad Omier probably had an NBA body when he was in kindergarten.

Karl Malones muscles are jealous of Norchads.

Jeremy Roach, Robert Wright III and Jayden Nunn could get a crack at the league sooner or later.

Yeah, its a good time to be a Baylor Bear in the NBA, or even just an NBA prospect still wearing a Baylor uniform.

Those guys do such a great job of always talking highly o fthe program and what the program means, Drew said.

At the end of the day, weve been blessed that weve had guys come in, theyve worked hard, theyve grown, theyve improved, and because of that theyve benefited and Baylor University has.

Call it the Platinum Age.

Be the first to know Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items..

This article has been shared from the original article on wacotrib, here is the link to the original article.