LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — The 2007 NBA Draft is best remembered as the year Portland allowed Kevin Durant to slide to the Seattle Supersonics and the second pick because the Trailblazers only had eyes for Greg Oden of Ohio State.
The Supersonics, for the record, are now the Oklahoma City Thunder, a franchise that could not win an NBA title with Durant, James Harden and Russell Westbrook but did win one Sunday night with former Kentucky stars Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Cason Wallace.
Two days of silence is the maximum the NBA tolerates. The league returns to mid-court Wednesday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. for the 2025 NBA Draft.
This will be known as the Cooper Flagg Draft. With an alleged 1.8% chance to win the lottery, the Mavericks scored the privilege to the first pick and will select the precocious 18-year-old Duke freshman.
Studying multiple NBA mock drafts, I’m confident that players from Duke, Rutgers, Illinois, Washington State, South Carolina, Georgetown and Colorado State will have players selected in the first round.
But Louisville, Kentucky and Indiana will not have anybody taken in the first round …
… for the first time since 2007, the Kevin Durant Draft.
A first-round streak that started with Eric Gordon and D.J. White representing Indiana in round one of 2008, continued with Terrence Williams and Earl Clark from Louisville in 2009 and then has been carried by Kentucky since 2010 (when five Wildcats were first-rounders) will end Wednesday night.
The locals most likely to be called are Kentucky guard Koby Brea and UK center Amari Williams, both projected second-round selections.
Starting with the 2008 draft, when Gordon (still active) went seventh to the Clippers and White was taken 29th by the Pistons, at least one U of L, UK or IU player cracked the first round for 17 straight seasons.
Kentucky carried with load with 35 guys (I don’t count Enes Freedom or Shaedon Sharpe, considering neither played a minute for UK). Nine Hoosiers made the list.
Louisville contributed five first-rounders — Williams, Earl Clark, Gorgui Dieng, Terry Rozier and Donovan Mitchell.
The Kentuckiana shutout should not last long.
No longer than one year.
One very, very, very early 2026 mock NBA Draft shows UK forward Jayden Quaintance as a Top 10 pick with Louisville freshman guard Mikel Brown at No. 12.
Other Cardinals (Kasean Pryor, Ryan Conwell, Adrian Wooley), Wildcats (Otega Oweh, Jasper Johnson, Malachi Moreno) or Hoosiers (Tucker DeVries, Lamar Wilkerson) could play their way into the conversation.
There is another interesting nugget I uncovered in the mock draft that Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo shared at ESPN.com.
Number of likely first-round picks from the 2025 NCAA national championship game?
That number is one — Florida guard Walter Clayton Jr.
It is a one-player list.
Flagg is one of three Duke guys likely to be called in the first 10 picks, but the Blue Devils lost to Houston in the national semifinals, despite their immense talent advantage.
The other two Final Four teams, Auburn and national runner-up Houston, are unlikely to have a first-rounder.
How many players will be drafted in round one off teams that failed to make the NCAA Tournament?
That number is seven.
It begins with the guard Dylan Harper and forward Ace Bailey, from the Rutgers squad that lost 17 of 32 games and finished 11th in the Big Ten. I wonder how Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell spins that one to recruits.
But that list also includes Collin-Murray Boyles, from South Carolina, which finished last in the Southeastern Conference; Cedric Coward, from 19-15 Washington State; Thomas Sorber, from 18-16 Georgetown; Rasheer Fleming, from 22-13 St. Joseph’s and center Maxime Raynaud, whose Stanford squad went 21-14.
First-round draft picks, but zero-round NCAA Tournament guys.
We’ll have all of our answers Wednesday night. But the 17-season streak of having at least one U of L, UK or IU player taken in the first round of the NBA Draft will end in Brooklyn.
Other sports stories:
Oklahoma City Thunder win first NBA title with dominant defense in Game 7
SPORTS PAGE | Will Louisville football win more than 8 games this season?
The Big Dog flips: Marrow joins Louisville, turns up the heat on Kentucky
Copyright 2025 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.
