Elijah Hughes could further boost his draft stock if NBA Combine occurs

Talk of the NBA Draft Combine actually taking place would give Elijah Hughes an additional opportunity to showcase his skills, talent and character.

Former Syracuse basketball star Elijah Hughes is seeing his stock climb in some mock NBA Drafts, and it’s basically a forgone conclusion at this point that he will hear his name called at the 2020 draft, an event that several media reports have indicated could take place in late August or early September.

At this juncture, Hughes may even rise up into the first round. He put forth a tremendous 2019-20 season, and his production in this most-recent stanza speaks for itself; Hughes led the Atlantic Coast Conference in scoring, and he also excels in ball-handling, passing, rebounding and shot-blocking.

Yet if the NBA Draft Combine, whose status is presently up in the air, can transpire, that will give Hughes another avenue for which to impress pro teams’ personnel. And I’m not merely talking about Hughes’ abilities on the court.

As we recently noted in a column, Hughes is a high-character young man, with a fabulous work ethic and great head on his shoulders. These positive personality traits could more effectively come across if Hughes is able to meet with NBA squads in-person, rather than just virtually because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

And if he can suit up at the combine, I believe that he can only help his draft stock. For one, if he doesn’t fare all that well at the combine, he still has a stellar 2019-20 for which to reference. Should Hughes crush things at this event, well, the sky is the limit for him.

To that end, Adam Zagoria of Zagsblog recently reported that the NBA Draft Combine could possibly happen in Las Vegas, Orlando or Chicago, this latter city representing where the combine originally was slated to take place.

“If there is a combine it will probably be in Chicago or Las Vegas or Orlando if that is where they are going to have the teams play if there is a season,” one NBA executive told Zagoria.

NBA officials and team executives continue to discuss the potential of the league’s most-recent term returning this summer to ultimately crown a world champion.

On the topic of the combine, Hughes said in an interview with Syracuse.com, “… at the end of the day, if I’m at the combine or if I’m doing workouts for teams, I’m going to always give 110 percent. People are going to know what they’re going to get out of me. If there was a combine, if there wasn’t a combine, whatever the case may be going forward, people are going to know what they’re going to get out of me. I’m going to go in there and compete at a high level and just work extremely hard every time I’m on the court.”

Like I said earlier, Hughes is a humble, grounded person. My fingers are crossed that he is picked in the NBA Draft’s first round and goes on to an excellent pro career.