Enhanced by Final Four run, UCLA players' NBA prospects remain middling

As recently as a month ago, that familiar clash — should they stay or should they go? — confronted only one UCLA player facing a decision about his NBA future.

Slogging through the early stages of rehabilitating a serious knee injury, Chris Smith contemplated two choices. Staying for one more college season would allow the senior guard to prove he was recovered and worthy of a draft pick. Going to the NBA draft immediately would allow him to cash in on his enticing upside — or risk falling down the draft board and going undrafted altogether.

Now, in the wake of the Bruins’ storybook run to the Final Four, a few of Smith’s previously unheralded teammates might find themselves facing a similar conundrum.

Five consecutive nationally televised victories, including upsets of second-seeded Alabama and top-seeded Michigan, spotlighted sophomore guards Johnny Juzang and Jaime Jaquez Jr. as intriguing NBA prospects. Juzang averaged 27.4 points per game in the NCAA tournament and Jaquez made one winning play after another, driving for layups, ripping away rebounds and diving for loose balls.

Hey, Charlotte Hornets and Miami Heat, what do you think of us now?

“Unfortunately, there is a little bit of an East Coast bias, so a lot of these kids on the West Coast, I don’t think people knew as well as some of the bigger names,” one Western Conference scout said this week. “Not everybody watches UCLA or lives in L.A., so I think it’s a little tricky.”

None of the three NBA scouts who spoke with The Times identified any of the Bruins as probable first-round picks in what’s expected to be a relatively deep draft. One of the scouts, who divulged their opinions on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss publicly college players, said Juzang should consider turning pro after becoming a Johnny-come-lately to the NBA draft scene.

“Juzang needs to come out now, because he’s hot and he’s proven that he can play at the high level,” one Eastern Conference scout said. “I think going back might hurt him.”

A Western Conference scout was more tempered in his assessment, saying that Juzang probably would be drafted somewhere in the middle of the second round were he to enter the draft. Juzang is No. 63 on ESPN’s list of the best available college players, meaning he could risk going unselected in a draft that includes 60 picks in two rounds, which includes foreign players.

“He’s a little one-dimensional as a scorer right now, like he’s got to figure out ways to show us that that he can do more things than that,” the Western Conference scout said. “From a scoring perspective, he scored at all three levels, I thought he did a really good job in the tournament, it’s just we need a little bit bigger of a sample size from him.”

Smith faces a trickier decision after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee Dec. 31. While recently saying it was possible he could recover in six months, Smith acknowledged that a more realistic timetable would be eight to 10 months, making him unable to participate in team workouts ahead of the July 29 draft.

Smith had flirted with entering the 2020 draft before pulling out to enhance his stock. He didn’t wow NBA scouts in the eight games he played, averaging 12.6 points and 6.4 rebounds while shooting 43.8% and logging more turnovers (20) than assists (16).

“His first year with Mick [Cronin], he got a lot better and was much more of a focused defensive player; I thought he played harder,” one Western Conference scout said of Smith, the Pac-12 Conference’s most improved player as a junior. “This year is kind of an incomplete where I expected him to have a really good year and be a first-round pick, and even though he didn’t play a ton of games, when he did play I didn’t see that next jump.”

All three scouts said Smith would be better served returning to UCLA for one more season, provided he played well enough to prove that he was worthy of being selected in the first round. He could come back without counting against the team’s scholarship limit because of eligibility extensions granted in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, designated as a super senior.

“I know I’ve got an extra season, some more eligibility,” Smith told The Times in late February, “but I haven’t really thought about that yet.”

A Western Conference scout said Jaquez’s relentlessness and across-the-board contributions made him the best prospect on the team, but even so, he projected Jaquez as an early second-round pick.

“Where Johnny needs to learn to do a lot of little things, Jaime does the little things instinctively,” the scout said in comparing UCLA teammates. “Like, I think he’s a winner, I think he’s tough, I think he can make shots, I think he’ll do all the little things to make his teammates better.”

Redshirt junior forward Cody Riley also enhanced his prospects with a strong run in the NCAA tournament, reminding some of undersized power forward Craig Smith. At 6 feet 7, Smith earned the nickname “Rhino” in the NBA for the way he bulldozed defenders around the basket, but that style has become mostly obsolete in today’s NBA.

“I’m not even sure if Craig Smith is an NBA player anymore,” one Western Conference scout said. “It’s not easy to play that role.”

The scout said Riley’s best hope would be to become a high-energy rebounder in the mold of Kenneth Faried, but that would require finding the right coach who needed that kind of player in his system. Most likely, the scout said, Riley’s professional future lies overseas.

According to the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement, graduating college seniors such as Smith are automatically eligible for the draft and do not need to declare their intentions. The other Bruins could declare themselves eligible to receive assessments about their draft standing before withdrawing to preserve their college eligibility.

Cronin said he would meet with his players to discuss their futures, always putting their best interests first. That might mean another college season for these Bruins, barring unusual circumstances or an assurance they would be selected in the first round.

“Obviously, Johnny had a magical tournament,” Cronin said. “I’ll meet with him this week.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.