3 lessons from former Kansas Jayhawks prove that Johnny Furphy should enter NBA Draft
By Tyler Key
Learn from Brandon Rush… Injuries can happen at any time
Jayhawk fans may try to claim that Furphy needs another year to develop before he should enter the draft, potentially mentioning how both Ochai Agbaji and Christian Braun became first-round draft picks as upperclassmen. What fans tend to not mention/remember is all of the times that players have stayed in college for an extra year and plummeted their draft stock. The first way this can happen is due to a significant injury, such as KU legend, Brandon Rush.
Rush was a beast at Kansas right away, winning Big 12 Rookie of the Year and making All-Big 12 his freshman year. He averaged 13.5 PPG and 5.9 RPG while shooting an insane 47.4% from three. Projected as a late-first-round pick in 2006, Rush elected to return for his sophomore year and continued to be effective, raising his draft stock to a projected top-10 pick for the 2007 NBA Draft. Tragedy struck however, as after Rush initially declared for the NBA Draft, he tore his ACL and ended up having to return to Kansas for his junior year unexpectedly. Luckily for Rush, as well as Kansas, things did work out in the end as the Jayhawks won the NCAA championship in 2008 and Rush was drafted 13th overall the following year. While this injury story had a positive ending, not all of them do.