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No final decision has been made regarding Jaylin Williams’ future, but head coach Eric Musselman said Thursday morning that the Arkansas big man is currently “all-in” on the NBA Draft process.
Williams is in Chicago for the NBA Draft Combine this week and has until June 1 to withdraw from the draft and maintain his college eligibility.
In an interview on the Red Zone with Josh Bertaccini, which airs on 92.1 FM in the mornings in Northwest Arkansas, Musselman addressed his status while testing the waters.
“He is all-in right now on this NBA dream…that’s the focus right now,” Musselman said. “I think when you put your name in for the draft and you’re trying to make a decision, you’ve got to be all-in. You can’t be having discussions about the Arkansas Razorback roster with your coaching staff.”
According to Andy Katz of NCAA.com, Williams “wants to hear a guarantee” before making a final decision on whether to remain in the draft or return to Arkansas for his junior season.
In the meantime, the Fort Smith native has been working out and training in Miami, where he’s prepared for the various aspects of the combine, such as agility tests and shooting drills.
After generating some late first-round buzz at the end of the season, most mock drafts have Williams slotted in the middle of the second round following the draft lottery this week. ESPN has him going 46th overall to Detroit, The Athletic has him going one pick later to Memphis and Bleacher Report has him going 51st to Golden State.
However, Musselman declined to give a prediction on where he felt Williams would go because he’s yet to go through the entire combine and then individual workouts with teams will follow that.
“First of all, if he keeps his name in there, we want him to get drafted as high as he possibly can,” Musselman said. “There’s so many things, so many different factors. You want to find a team that drafts early that has a team need, positional need, and then you also want to find an NBA team that really values what you do.”
As things currently stand with Arkansas’ roster, the Razorbacks would be at 14 scholarships if Williams returns. If he leaves, they’d be right at the 13-man limit, but that number would include just two returning players — Davonte Davis and Kamani Johnson.
That means Arkansas would be replacing 87.0 percent of its scoring and 83.5 percent of its total minutes from last season, while bringing in 11 new scholarship players.
“(Davis and Johnson) are going to have to really lay the groundwork for the pace that we want to practice with,” Musselman said. “It’s going to be completely new. You have six high school guys that are not really going to be used to the intensity level — not just in the games, but early on with the way we’re going to practice in June and July. We’re going to have to lay the foundation.”
Williams’ looming decision is the final domino in what has been a wild offseason for the Razorbacks.
In addition to landing Anthony Black as a sixth signee and third McDonald’s All-American, Musselman has also brought in five transfers — Trevon Brazile, Makhi and Makhel Mitchell, Jalen Graham and Ricky Council IV — while seeing four players transfer out and two potential super seniors declare for the NBA Draft.
“For the last two years, while we’ve been prepping for Elite Eight runs, we’ve also been recruiting, doing Zooms while we’re preparing to play Gonzaga, and then immediately upon the season ending, jumping right into the transfer portal,” Musselman said. “Really, over the last five or six days has been the only down time that our staff has had. It’s been amazing, because as soon as Ricky Council signed, that’s really the first time where we’ve taken a deep breath.”
Given some free time, Musselman has taken some vacation that has also provided him with an opportunity to pick the brains of those in other sports — primarily baseball.
Earlier this week, he went to an Angels-Rangers game in Arlington, Texas, and reunited with an old friend, Phil Nevin, who’s now the Angels’ third base coach. During that trip, he also met with Angels manager Joe Maddon, Rangers manager Chris Woodward and several players — including All-Stars Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani and Corey Seager.
His next stop was Kansas City, as he shared photos Thursday afternoon after meeting Royals manager Mike Matheny and outfielder — and former Arkansas standout — Andrew Benintendi.
However, Musselman hasn’t stopped thinking about basketball. In fact, he said he’s constantly been brainstorming ideas — “really neat and fun things” — to build chemistry with his rebuilt roster over the summer.
There will be competitive practices, as well, as the talented group fights for a finite number of minutes in the upcoming season.
“Some of the things we talk about are, ‘Hey, the coaches don’t determine the minutes. You determine the minutes as an individual player — one, with how you blend with your team, two, with how your role fits with your teammates and then your competitive nature behind closed doors,’” Musselman said. “It’s deserved, it’s earned. It’s earned over practice. It’s earned over beating another guy out through competition. So it’s going to be a really, really important summer for us from a competition standpoint.”
Coming off back-to-back appearances in the Elite Eight and with the nation’s No. 2 recruiting class coming in, not to mention a portal haul many consider to be among the best in the country, expectations for Arkansas’ 2022-23 season are at an all-time high.
“The excitement, we embrace it,” Musselman said. “It comes with a lot of responsibility, which is a lot of the stuff that we’re going to talk to our team about when we get together here in a couple of weeks.”
