Texas Tech basketball: Players we are happy to see leave the Big 12

Recently, the NBA set its calendar for the summer as it pertains to the draft process.  That’s something Texas Tech basketball fans were curious to know given that 2019-20’s leading scorer, Jahmi’us Ramsey, is in the draft pool but has not hired an agent meaning that he will have the right to return to Lubbock.

Originally, the NBA Draft was set to be held on the 21st of this month.  Thus, we already expected to know Ramsey’s status by this point in the offseason.

Now, we will have to wait for potentially two more months.  In fact, we now know that it could be as late as August 3rd until all players currently in the draft pool have to make their final declarations.  Thus, Ramsey’s decision may not come until less than a month prior to the start of the fall semester in Lubbock (assuming classes begin on time).

But when the draft is held, Tech fans will recognize plenty of Big 12 names when they are called.  And though many fans may not realize it, the Big 12 has been a rather fruitful supplier of talent for the NBA.

Though we are loath to admit it, much of that is due to the presence of the Kansas Jayhawks.  All-time, KU has produced 72 NBA Draft picks, fifth-most of any program in the nation.

But what’s been interesting is that it has been quite a long time since the conference produced a true NBA superstar.  In fact, the last dominant NBA player to come out of the Big 12 was Joel Embid from Kansas in 2014.  Some believe that 2018 Oklahoma grad Trae Young could get to that level but he’s not yet done so in his two professional seasons.

Prior to Embid, you would have to go back to 2009 to find the next Big 12 superstar in the NBA.  That year, Oklahoma forward Blake Griffin was taken No. 1 overall by the Los Angeles Clippers and since then, he’s been one of the game’s biggest names.  However, it would be fair to argue that he’s been more style over substance as his highlight dunks and nice stats have yet to yield anything close to a championship season.

Indeed, the NBA bust has been more common among Big 12 players.  Unfortunately, we would have to put former Red Raider Zhaire Smith in that category thus far.

Taken No. 16 overall by the Phoenix Suns and the traded to the Philadelphia 76ers in 2018, he has yet to become even a regular member of their active roster due to a broken foot and a food allergy reaction that dismantled his rookie season and has since left him scrambling to catch up in terms of development.

But he isn’t alone on the list of busts that have come from this conference.  Just consider that each of the following players was a lottery pick: Xavier Henry and Cole Aldrich of Kansas in 2010, Ekpe Udo of Baylor and Markieff Morris of Kansas in 2011, Thomas Robinson of Kanas in 2012, Taurean Prince of Baylor and Buddy Hield of Oklahoma in 2016, Josh Jackson of Kansas and Mo Bamba of Texas in 2018.

None of those players have been able to make it to superstardom in the NBA despite being dominant in the Big 12.  It just proves how huge the leap is and how much of a crapshoot the draft always turns out to be.

Still, we should be happy every time a conference rival puts a player in the draft because it means that we don’t have to watch them torture our Red Raiders anymore.  So let’s look at a player from every team that we are glad to see leave the Big 12 this offseason because it means we no longer have to worry about them.  (Note: West Virginia has no player of significance leaving this offseason so I picked two from Kanas because there were two obvious choices.)  And we will start with the Big 12 player guaranteed to be taken higher than any other from this league.