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Brackins' Stock Is Rising

It's amazing what a 40-inch vertical can do for a guy. Just 12 days ago, the concensus is that Brackins was a early to mid second round pick. Everybody from Chad Ford at ESPN to Draftexpress.com had Brackins in the top 40-50 range.

After the lottery, Chad Ford, along with most sites, updated their mock drafts, and Chad Ford now has Craig Brackins sitting at #25 to the Memphis Grizzlies (go to ESPN Insider to see the whole breakdown). It doesn't surprise me too much that Ford has him going higher, as he really was impressed by Brackins' showing on the vertical leap, and he let it be known on Twitter. But to move a guy 17 spots is still a big leap. He's probably the biggest mover on the draft board in general at this point. But I haven't been following all of the prospects so I don't know.

Most of the other mock draft sites have updated their projections as well, but still have Brackins sitting in the Top 40 or so.

Nbadraft.net had the next highest spot, with Brackins going #31 to New Jersey, the first pick in the second round.  And actually, despite not getting that guarenteed cash, New Jersey isn't a bad place to go: they're a bad team now, so there will be ample opportunities to prove one's self, as opposed to getting drafted late in the first round by the Lakers or Magic or a contending type of a team like that.

The opinions are still mixed, but it appears that he's now in that late first-early second round kind of a range, as opposed to being firmly in the second round. As for Gilstrap, he isn't registering anywhere, so I would expect to see him be undrafted, sign a free agent deal to try to make a team over the summer, and if that didn't pan out, to go to Europe or the D-League and go from there.

There's still a lot of time for the stock to change for these guys, as the actual draft happens on June 24th. It's just nice to see Brackins' stock rise, after giving up millions to come back and play another year at ISU. I really do hope it goes well for him, and he doesn't regret the decision to come back in retrospect.