{"id":55484,"date":"2025-05-25T10:42:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T10:42:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/55484\/"},"modified":"2025-05-25T10:42:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T10:42:16","slug":"duke-transfer-cedric-coward-keeping-name-in-2025-nba-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/55484\/","title":{"rendered":"Duke transfer Cedric Coward keeping name in 2025 NBA Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cedric Coward<\/a> will keep his name in the 2025 NBA Draft, he told ESPN\u2019s Jonathan Givony<\/a>. Coward committed to Duke<\/a> out of the NCAA transfer portal in April after playing one season at Washington State<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"Fan<\/a><\/p>\n

Coward played just six games for the Cougars during the 2024-25 season before suffering a partially torn shoulder labrum, which ended his season. He was averaging 17.7 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game before the injury. <\/p>\n

\u201cEven though I am staying in the draft, I picked Duke for a reason,\u201d Coward told ESPN<\/a>. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m halfway in the brotherhood. This was a difficult decision at first, but after the Combine it became a lot easier with the path I wanted to take. This was always the main goal. Even if I went to Duke, it would have been in order to get to this level. I feel like I am ready. It didn\u2019t hurt that I did pretty well at the Combine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coward appears to have received positive feedback from NBA scouts following last week\u2019s annual event. He said that teams were able to realize that his injury \u201cwasn\u2019t a setback,\u201d and that he used the time off to hone the details of his game. <\/p>\n

\u201cI improved tremendously in aspects that I needed to work on, which showed in my athletic testing and shooting. I\u2019m stronger mentally, physically and emotionally now,\u201d he told ESPN. <\/p>\n

Coward had an interesting journey to becoming a potential first-round draft choice, however. He began his collegiate career at the Division III level at Willamette University in 2021. Coward later transferred to Eastern Washington University where he spent two years before moving to Washington State. <\/p>\n

He was one of the top players in this year\u2019s NCAA transfer portal cycle, and was expected to be an instant impact performer for the Blue Devils had he stayed in college. Instead, he\u2019ll forgo his final season of eligibility to turn pro ahead of the 2025 NBA Draft. <\/p>\n

The 6 foot 6 Coward boasted impressive measurables at the combine, and proved himself as one of the best shooters at the entire event. As it stands, Coward has largely been projected to be drafted in the late first to early second round next month. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking for a team that wants to take a chance on me. I\u2019ve gotten really positive feedback. A lot of teams have been coy, not showing exactly how they feel,\u201d Coward said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s a guarantee or not, there\u2019s still work ahead of me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cedric Coward will keep his name in the 2025 NBA Draft, he told ESPN\u2019s Jonathan Givony. Coward committed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,2304,6,12],"class_list":{"0":"post-55484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-draft","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cedric-coward-21-central-east","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114568058939283994","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55484","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=55484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}