CHICAGO – Three of the players who finished in the top eight of the NBA’s recent Most Valuable Player vote starred for college programs that rarely, if ever, appear on national TV, including winner Stephen Curry (Davidson), runner-up Kawhi Leonard (San Diego State) and eighth-place Damian Lillard (Weber State). The league’s top 20 scorers in 2015-16 also included the likes of Paul George (Fresno State) and C.J. McCollum (Lehigh).
In other words, a fairly large portion of pro basketball’s current crop of premier players did not come from high-major colleges. For various reasons – including that some players are late-bloomers who don’t make dramatic improvements until they’re already in college – that means NBA teams must look beyond the familiar brand-name hoops programs during the draft process.