Former five-star center and likely lottery pick Mitchell Robinson will reportedly take the hard route to the NBA Draft next year. Pat Forde of Yahoo! Sports is reporting that Robinson will in fact not enroll in any school this season and take the year to prepare himself for the 2018 NBA Draft.
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Robinson was originally enrolled at Western Kentucky —- a school he picked because his godfather was an assistant coach there at the time —- but didn't last much more than two weeks before deciding to leave the school. He was granted permission to transfer to other schools, but he has missed the deadline to enroll in classes at either of the other two schools he was looking at. They were reportedly Kansas and the University of New Orleans while LSU was involved at one point, but was quickly eliminated.
Even if Robinson somehow found a way to get to a college this season, he would likely have to sit out the year because he would be considered a transfer. He could apply for a special waiver to play right away, but the likelihood it gets approved by the NCAA is almost non-existent since he was at WKU for such a short time.
The 7-footer is taking perhaps the toughest path to the NBA Draft as no one will see him on tape against comparable competition this season and teams are not too willing to take a chance on a total mystery project. Guys like Brandon Jennings and Terrance Ferguson at least went overseas for a year so they could dominate or at least good against that competition, but it appears that Robinson thinks a year of just working on his game and getting in the gym will be enough to get him drafted.
He was ranked as the No. 11 overall recruit in the 2017 recruiting class by ESPN and the No. 3 center in the class. He played for Chalmette High School in Louisiana. He had offers from Texas A&M, LSU and Alabama as well as others when he was initially being recruited.
