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An NBA Draft Prospect Out of China… Sort of

Wednesday, 21st May 2008 ~ Maggie ~ Link ~ Comments (0)

With the NBA Draft Lottery taking place yesterday, talk is heating up about which players will go to which teams. While there's no Chinese prospect this year, one player who is getting some attention has a history in the Middle Kingdom. Joe Alexander, a junior who played at West Virginia University, was born in Taiwan and spent much of his youth in China due to his father's overseas job posting.

In this run-down of a few emerging prospects, ESPN's Chad Ford says that Alexander could be "the sleeper in the 2008 NBA draft" and projects that he could easily be among the top three small forwards selected. Alexander averaged 17 points and 6.4 rebounds in his junior season and had some big-time performances, with back-to-back 32-point games against Connecticut and Pittsburgh.

Reports about how much time he spent in China range from six to eight years. Alexander returned to the United States at age 16 to play high school basketball in Maryland, Ford's report says. The fact that he spent so much time in China seems to have contributed to his under-the-radar, late-bloomer status. He has had the last five years to impress NBA scouts, but in the insane recruiting atmosphere of college basketball that has seen middle school players get scholarship offers, entering the system as a high school junior is pretty late.

Ford's first mock draft projected Alexander as the 13th pick, joining Greg Oden at the Portland Trailblazers. But there's a lot of maneuvering to happen between now and the actual draft.

Tags: basketball, Joe Alexander, NBA

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