Via Stepien Rules‘ Brendan Bowers, West Virginia senior Kevin Jones tweets that he has been picked up by the Cavaliers:
Thanx to the Cleveland cavs for believing in me and my abilities, so its off to the cavs I go!!!
— Kevin Jones (@kevjones5) June 30, 2012
I will continue to keep working hard and improving everyday
— Kevin Jones (@kevjones5) June 30, 2012
Yahoo’s Jeff Eisenberg says that Jones was one of the best players left unselected after Thursday’s NBA Draft:
To appreciate how little stock NBA franchises sometimes put in a draft prospect’s college production, consider this example for a moment.
West Virginia’s Kevin Jones earned second-team All-American honors last season, scoring 19.9 points per game, grabbing 10.9 rebounds and shooting 50.9 percent from the field in the rugged Big East. That still wasn’t enough to get him drafted, however, as NBA teams apparently found 60 guys they thought had greater potential.
The only good news for Jones is he’s far from the only highly successful college player not to be selected in this year’s draft. Here’s a look at a list of the top college players who were not drafted Thursday night the same way Notre Dame’s Ben Hansbrough, Kansas State’s Jacob Pullen and Georgetown’s Austin Freeman weren’t last year:
1. Kevin Jones, F, Sr., West Virginia
Comment: The 6-foot-8 forward did everything possible as a senior to earn a second-round look, carrying an otherwise uninspiring West Virginia team to the NCAA tournament. Unfortunately for Jones, that apparently wasn’t enough to change NBA scouts’ opinion he’s unlikely to thrive in the league as a result of a lack of size and outside shooting combined with a game that is decidedly below the rim
Hard to know much more, maybe he and Samardo Samuels can have some nasty, undersized, undrafted bigman low-post battles in practice. Look for the Cavs to continue to scour the D-League and undrafted FAs for potential roster fodder throughout the summer.
[Related: Talking Myself into Dion Waiters]
