NEW ROCHELLE, NY - Iona College men's basketball alum A.J. English is poised to take the biggest leap in his young professional career Thursday night (Jun. 23) as he awaits to hear his name called in the 2016 NBA Draft. While the prospect of English being picked is remote, his name is listed on several prominent draft prospect lists and his performance in pre-draft workouts and events has sparked interest from multiple teams. Expect to see English associated with an NBA franchise either as a draft selection or an undrafted free agent before the end of the weekend.
Tuesday afternoon, ESPN’s College Basketball and NBA Draft analyst Jay Bilasanswered media questions to preview the 2016 NBA Draft. The second question pertained to the two of the few New York angles in this year’s draft, English and Seton Hall’s Isaiah Whitehead.
“I saw A.J. a fair amount at Iona. He's got very long arms. He's a good scorer, can shoot from range, and he played in -- as you know, Tim Cluess has an up-tempo system, but he's been really effective,” Bilas said of English. “He's got to be 23, 24 years old now, but he shot in the high 30s from three-point range for his career, does very well out of pick-and-roll situations, and he can -- MVP at Portsmouth this year, so he did a really good job with his length and scoring ability, and especially in transition. The majority of his offense are jump shots. He's better at catch and shoot than he is pulling up. He does turn the ball over a little bit, but when you play at that pace, you're going to cough it up once in a while. But I think A.J. is a good player that I think will be a second-round pick.”
Another ESPN contributor, NBA Draft expert Chad Ford has English listed at No. 65 on his Top 100 list and No. 11 among point guards available. Ford lists English’s strengths as “Big, athletic combo guard, good shooter with range, elite length for his position, good rebounder for a guard, plays with toughness,” – all qualities known to Iona fans for the past four years.
Other mentions of note:
- On NBADraft.net’s Big Board, English ranks 85th among the top 100 draft prospects. He is also listed on the honorable mention list following the website’s Top 10 Shooting Guard Prospects.
- David Aldridge, Turner Sports commentator, has English listed under “Some Scouts Like” after his top 10 point guard list on DA’s Big Board on NBA.com.
- CBS Sports College Basketball Writer Sam Vecenie lists English at No. 91 on his top 2016 draft prospects ahead of the NBA Draft.
- DraftExpress.com does not have English on its Top 100 prospects list, though he is ranked No. 63 among NCAA seniors.
The 2016 NBA Draft will take place on June 23, 2016 at 7:00 pm ET from the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. It can be seen live on ESPN.