Where Lawson ranks on a few big boards
The NBA Draft and everything associated with it—the lottery, the combine, everything—is in flux right now with Coronavirus putting all of it, including players' decisions, in limbo for the next few weeks.
All of the hundreds of players who declared early for the NBA draft will have a decision to make over the coming months with one of those players South Carolina's AJ Lawson.
Also see: The latest with Charles Armstrong
Lawson, who declared on the final day of the deadline, will go through the process and has to choose whether or not to stay in the draft pool or return to South Carolina for his junior season.
In preparation for his decision, he's a look at where he sits on some of the big boards for the draft.
It should be noted he's not listed on ESPN's top 100, CBS's big board, the Athletic's board or on Sports Illustrated's top 80 prospects currently but has a few sites ranking him high and some having him as a draftable player after his junior season.
Lawson is considered the No. 69 overall prospect in the 2020 draft class by Tankathon—a widely-respected site among basketball writers—which released its updated rankings three weeks ago, just before the deadline to declare.
NBA Draft Room has Lawson as a fringe second round pick in 2021, the No. 63 overall prospect in the class.
NBADraft.net doesn't have an updated draft big board yet—Lawson was the No. 39 prospect as of their latest rankings Dec. 27—but in the updated 2021 mock draft it had Lawson as the No. 57 overall pick to the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Clippers were obviously the team that drafted Sindarius Thornwell after the 2017 Final Four run.
Lawson entered his name and, as it stands currently with things subject to change, has until the beginning of June to withdraw his name from the draft pool.
Also see: The latest with Jordan Poole
He hasn't hired an agent, which means he's still able to retain his eligibility if he wants to return for at least one more season at South Carolina.
This season, after entering as a projected first round pick, Lawson struggled for consistency. He'd average a team-best 13.4 points per game but shot just 39 percent from the field, 34 from three and 67.2 from the line in conference play.
Earlier this week, former NBA agent Matt Babcock gave his assessment to GamecockCentral on what he thinks Lawson should do.
