{"id":106327,"date":"2025-06-18T03:30:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T03:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/106327\/"},"modified":"2025-06-18T03:30:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T03:30:13","slug":"walter-clayton-jr-reveals-favorite-nba-player-without-hesitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/106327\/","title":{"rendered":"Walter Clayton Jr. Reveals Favorite NBA Player Without Hesitation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Walter Clayton Jr. Reveals Favorite NBA Player Without Hesitation<\/a> originally appeared on Athlon Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Yet for Clayton Jr., the journey didn\u2019t start off easy. He was a zero-star recruit coming out of high school and ranked just the No. 69 point guard in his class nationally. But he happened to land in the hands of arguably the greatest coach of all time, Rick Pitino, who offered him a chance at Iona.<\/p>\n

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Clayton spent his freshman and sophomore seasons at Iona before transferring to Florida after Pitino accepted the head coaching job at St. John\u2019s. Now, with the NBA draft just about a week away, Clayton is projected to hear his name called\u2014whether it\u2019s in the first or second round. Most mock drafts have him going somewhere between picks 20\u201330 on day one.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the draft, Clayton Jr. sat down with the \u201cNBA Future Starts Now\u201d social media team, where he was asked who his favorite NBA player was. He didn\u2019t even have to think twice\u2014his answer came instantly: Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeBron James,\u201d Clayton Jr. said. \u201cThat\u2019s who I grew up watching, man. He\u2019s been in the league since I was born.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s currently very unlikely that Clayton Jr. will get the opportunity to join the Lakers, unless the team makes a move to trade up in the draft. As it stands, Los Angeles only holds the No. 55 pick this year, with their first-round selection belonging to the New Orleans Pelicans as part of the Anthony Davis trade.<\/p>\n

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Still, whichever team ends up landing the Florida star is getting a player who doesn\u2019t crack under pressure\u2014at all. It\u2019s almost as if he\u2019s immune to it, consistently hitting clutch shots throughout the NCAA Tournament and lifting the Gators in key moments.<\/p>\n

\"Florida<\/p>\n

Florida Gators guard Walter Clayton Jr. (1) celebrates after winning the national championship game of the Final Four of the 2025 NCAA Tournament at the Alamodome.Bob Donnan-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Clayton Jr. has averaged 16 or more points in each of the last three seasons. This past year, he posted 18.3 points, 4.2 assists, 3.7 rebounds, and 1.2 steals per game while shooting an impressive 38.6% from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n

Related: Walter Clayton and Florida Gators Land Unique Job After NCAA Championship<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports<\/a> on Jun 17, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Walter Clayton Jr. Reveals Favorite NBA Player Without Hesitation originally appeared on Athlon Sports. Yet for Clayton Jr.,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[495,7,4715,18588,950,185,251,150,6,470,1284],"class_list":{"0":"post-106327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-anthony-davis","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-clayton","11":"tag-clayton-jr","12":"tag-florida-gators","13":"tag-lebron-james","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-new-orleans-pelicans","18":"tag-rick-pitino"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114702255675118150","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}