{"id":707256,"date":"2026-04-10T08:45:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T08:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/707256\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T08:45:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T08:45:20","slug":"stanfords-ebuka-okorie-declaring-for-2026-nba-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/707256\/","title":{"rendered":"Stanford&#8217;s Ebuka Okorie Declaring For 2026 NBA Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stanford guard <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cbb\/players\/ebuka-okorie-1.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-09_cbb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ebuka Okorie<\/a> is declaring for the 2026 NBA draft, agents CJ Ward and Mike Miller tell Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DraftExpress\/status\/2042306330694652134\" rel=\"nofollow\">Twitter link<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Givony, who refers to the freshman as a projected first-round pick, says Okorie has \u201ctwo feet in the draft,\u201d but if the ACC\u2019s leading scorer returns to college, it will be to Stanford.<\/p>\n<p>Okorie confirmed the news on social media (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/ebukaokorie_\/p\/DW67cW4GLsG\/?img_index=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Instagram link<\/a>), and his announcement doesn\u2019t say anything about maintaining his college eligibility, even though it sounds like he\u2019ll be testing the draft waters.<\/p>\n<p>A 6\u20192\u2033 guard, Okorie had an incredibly productive freshman season for the Cardinal, averaging 23.2 points, 3.6 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.6 steals on .465\/.354\/.832 shooting in 31 games (35.1 minutes per contest). He finished eighth in the country in scoring and only behind projected lottery picks AJ Dybantsa and Darius Acuff Jr. among freshman, writes <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/ebuka-okorie-nba-draft-156171682e10beb6331f2fa2470000be\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Josh Dubow of The Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA year ago you guys took a chance on a kid from New Hampshire with zero high major offers, welcoming me with open arms and allowing me to be the best version of myself on and off the court,\u201d Okorie wrote in thanking Stanford\u2019s coaching staff.<\/p>\n<p>Okorie comes in at <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/46886245\/2026-nba-draft-big-board-rankings-top-100-prospects-players\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">No. 38 on ESPN\u2019s latest big board<\/a>, which would make him an early second-round pick, but he goes No. 21 overall in the latest mock draft from <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/bleacherreport.com\/articles\/25262746-2026-nba-mock-draft\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Bleacher Report\u2019s Jonathan Wasserman<\/a>, who says Okorie\u2019s draft range appears to be wide, with a variety of opinions from scouts.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stanford guard Ebuka Okorie is declaring for the 2026 NBA draft, agents CJ Ward and Mike Miller tell&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,65460,6,12],"class_list":{"0":"post-707256","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-draft","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ebuka-okorie","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116379538164415321","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707256","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=707256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}