{"id":79698,"date":"2024-05-31T17:15:57","date_gmt":"2024-05-31T21:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=79698"},"modified":"2024-05-31T17:15:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-31T21:15:57","slug":"2024-nba-draft-blazers-host-third-round-workouts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/31\/2024-nba-draft-blazers-host-third-round-workouts\/","title":{"rendered":"2024 NBA Draft: Blazers Host Third Round of Predraft Workouts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Portland Trail Blazers are charging ahead with their rebuild mode after trading former face of the franchise <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lillada01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Damian Lillard<\/a> last September. With the 2024 NBA Draft now a month away, they\u2019ve already worked out no fewer 18 prospects.<\/p>\n<p>Their latest round was on Thursday, when they brought in Melvin Ajinca (Saint-Quentin), Cam Christie (Minnesota), Thierry Darlan (G League Ignite), Malik Hall (Michigan State), <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/04\/30\/harrison-ingram-2024-nba-draft-profile\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Harrison Ingram<\/a> (North Carolina), and Keshad Johnson (Arizona), per The Rose Garden Report\u2019s Sean Highkin. Ajinca is the cousin of former New Orleans Pelicans big man, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/ajincal01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alexis Ajinca<\/a>. Christie is the brother of Los Angeles Lakers wing, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/chrisma02.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Max Christie<\/a>. Ingram was a five-star high school recruit in 2021, once thought to have lottery potential.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Today&#8217;s Blazers predraft workout session participants:<\/p>\n<p>Melvin Ajinca (Saint-Quentin)<br \/>\nCam Christie (Minnesota)<br \/>\nThierry Darlan (G League Ignite)<br \/>\nMalik Hall (Michigan State)<br \/>\nHarrison Ingram (North Carolina)<br \/>\nKeshad Johnson (Arizona)<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sean Highkin (@highkin) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/highkin\/status\/1796210098051903536?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 30, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The Blazers had already hosted the following players for predraft workouts: RaeQuan Battle (West Virginia); Adem Bona (UCLA); Arthur Kaluma (Kansas State); Ugonna Onyenso (Kentucky); Will Richard (Florida); Jaylon Tyson (California); Isaiah Crawford (Louisiana Tech); Alex Karaban (UConn); Caleb Love (Arizona); Quinten Post (Boston College); Tyler Smith (G League Ignite); and Kel&#8217;el Ware (Indiana).<\/p>\n<p>Kaluma, Karaban, Love, and Onyenso were among <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NBAPR\/status\/1796322331888906457\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the 93 players to withdraw<\/a> from the draft on or before May 29.<\/p>\n<h2>Blazers Host Third Round of Predraft Workouts<\/h2>\n<p>Among the prospects that the Blazers hosted for predraft workouts, Tyson and Crawford have been among the most popular.<\/p>\n<p>A junior guard, Tyson averaged 19.6 points, 3.5 assists, and 1.2 steals per game in 2023-24 while shooting 36.0 percent from 3. A fifth-year senior, Crawford averaged 16.3 points, 2.1 steals, and 1.7 blocks per game in 2023-24 while shooting 41.4 percent from 3. Given that Portland has four picks in the upcoming draft, it\u2019s possible that they target either player with their No. 34 or No. 40 pick.<\/p>\n<p>However, Ajinca and Christie are also projected to be drafted in the late first or early second-round.<\/p>\n<p>Ajinca is an athletic and energetic wing at 6-foot-8 and 210 pounds. In 2023-24, he averaged 10.2 points per game while shooting 35.7 percent from 3. A developmental prospect, he\u2019s likely to initially stay in France or play for their G League team if drafted. Christie averaged 11.3 points per game on 39.1 percent shooting from 3 as a freshman. Due to his touch, range, and physical profile, he could hit the ground running at the NBA level.<\/p>\n<p>Of those four prospects, Tyson and Christie have the most upside. That said, if the Blazers were to draft one or both, they could boost Portland\u2019s mediocre offense immediately. Both players are excellent deep threats, and the Blazers shot 34.5 percent from 3 in 2023-24, the worst mark in the NBA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Portland Trail Blazers are charging ahead with their rebuild mode after trading former face of the franchise Damian Lillard last September. With the 2024 NBA Draft now a month away, they\u2019ve already worked out no fewer 18 prospects. Their latest round was on Thursday, when they brought in Melvin Ajinca (Saint-Quentin), Cam Christie (Minnesota), [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":79731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1608,62,556,3],"tags":[4916,98],"class_list":["post-79698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trailblazers","category-basketball","category-nba","category-nba-draft","category-news","tag-max-christie","tag-nba-draft"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}