Zach Edey has reliable sources about his basketball status.
Dan Dakich, a host at OutKick who was previously a college basketball analyst at ESPN, tweeted Tuesday morning that “My people are telling me Zach Edey is in the transfer portal. The transfer portal and NIL suck.”
Edey, the 20-year-old Purdue big man who has been the heavy betting favorite to win the Naismith College Basketball Player of the Year, says that ain’t so.
“My sources are telling me this is false,” Edey responded.
Dakich played under Bob Knight at Indiana in the 1980s and had a 14-year run hosting sports talk radio in Indianapolis that concluded late last year.
Nonetheless, he has thrown in the towel on his sourcing.
“Just fired ‘my people,’” he tweeted. “Looking for new ‘people’ Apply here.”
Edey’s basketball future is intriguing for a number of reasons.
In a past day and age, he would’ve been pegged as an upper echelon NBA draft pick.
However, the modern era places less of a premium on his skills in the post and as a rebounder, and much more on the quickness and shooting range that he lacks.
Therefore, he is not currently touted as a lottery pick, or even to go in the first round, despite being the best player in college hoops this past season.
ESPN’s Jonathan Givony has Edey ranked as the 53rd best available prospect in the 2023 NBA Draft and The Athletic’s latest mock draft has Edey going 45th overall.
The 7-foot-4 Edey averaged 22.3 points and 12.9 rebounds per game this season, shooting over 60 percent from the field as Purdue won both the regular season and conference tournament in the Big Ten.
But, the Boilermakers were stunned in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, losing 63-58 to the 16-seeded Fairleigh Dickinson.
Last year, Purdue lost to 15-seed Saint Peter’s in the Sweet Sixteen, and in 2021 they were upset by 13-seed North Texas in an overtime heartbreaker in the first round of March Madness.
Edey has a year of eligibility remaining and it is not just competition factors that he’d be weighing in deciding where to play next year — he is in the position to highly capitalize on NIL opportunities.
Nonetheless, he says he has not entered the transfer portal, and time will tell whether he opts to play next season at Purdue, another college program or in the NBA.
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