{"id":726374,"date":"2026-05-05T14:33:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T14:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/726374\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T14:33:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T14:33:41","slug":"three-vols-invited-to-nba-draft-combine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/726374\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Vols invited to NBA draft combine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three Tennessee<\/a> basketball players were invited to the AWS NBA draft combine. The event will take place May 10-17 at Wintrust Arena and the Marriott Marquis in Chicago, Illinois.<\/p>\n

Nate Ament<\/a>, Felix Okpara<\/a> and Ja’Kobi Gillespie<\/a> were invited to the event. Okpara and Gillespie do not have college eligibility remaining, while Ament can return to Tennessee as a sophomore.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Ament is listed as the No. 8 best available player for the NBA draft,\u00a0according to ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 2026 NBA draft will take place June 23-24 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.<\/p>\n

A deadline for an early entry to withdraw from the NBA draft is June 13 at 5 p.m. EDT. The NBA draft first round is scheduled for June 23 (ABC\/ESPN) and the second round will be held June 24 (ESPN).<\/p>\n

The NBA draft lottery will also be held on May 10.<\/p>\n

More: Nate Ament ranked top 10 NBA draft best available player<\/a><\/p>\n

1 \/ 10<\/p>\n

PHOTOS: Tennessee basketball versus Virginia in NCAA Tournament<\/p>\n

March 22, 2026; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Tennessee Volunteers guard Ja’kobi Gillespie (0) makes a pass against the Virginia Cavaliers in the first half during a second round game of the men’s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Xfinity Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n

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1 \/ 10<\/p>\n

PHOTOS: Tennessee basketball versus Virginia in NCAA Tournament<\/p>\n

March 22, 2026; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Tennessee Volunteers guard Ja’kobi Gillespie (0) makes a pass against the Virginia Cavaliers in the first half during a second round game of the men’s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Xfinity Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n

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2 \/ 10<\/p>\n

PHOTOS: Tennessee basketball versus Virginia in NCAA Tournament<\/p>\n

March 22, 2026; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Tennessee Volunteers forward Nate Ament (10) dribbles the ball against the Virginia Cavaliers in the first half during a second round game of the men’s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Xfinity Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n

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3 \/ 10<\/p>\n

PHOTOS: Tennessee basketball versus Virginia in NCAA Tournament<\/p>\n

March 22, 2026; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Tennessee Volunteers forward Jaylen Carey (23) shoots a free throw against the Virginia Cavaliers in the first half during a second round game of the men’s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Xfinity Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n

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4 \/ 10<\/p>\n

PHOTOS: Tennessee basketball versus Virginia in NCAA Tournament<\/p>\n

March 22, 2026; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Tennessee Volunteers forward Nate Ament (10) dribbles the ball against Virginia Cavaliers center Ugonna Onyenso (33) in the first half during a second round game of the men’s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Xfinity Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n

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5 \/ 10<\/p>\n

PHOTOS: Tennessee basketball versus Virginia in NCAA Tournament<\/p>\n

March 22, 2026; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Tennessee Volunteers forward Nate Ament (10) dribbles the ball against Virginia Cavaliers guard Malik Thomas (1) in the first half during a second round game of the men’s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Xfinity Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n

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6 \/ 10<\/p>\n

PHOTOS: Tennessee basketball versus Virginia in NCAA Tournament<\/p>\n

March 22, 2026; Philadelphia, PA, USA;Tennessee Volunteers guard Amari Evans (1) makes a pass against Virginia Cavaliers guard Dallin Hall (30) in the first half during a second round game of the men’s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Xfinity Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n

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7 \/ 10<\/p>\n

PHOTOS: Tennessee basketball versus Virginia in NCAA Tournament<\/p>\n

March 22, 2026; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Tennessee Volunteers guard Bishop Boswell (3) shoots the ball against Virginia Cavaliers guard Jacari White (6) in the first half during a second round game of the men’s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Xfinity Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n

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8 \/ 10<\/p>\n

PHOTOS: Tennessee basketball versus Virginia in NCAA Tournament<\/p>\n

March 22, 2026; Philadelphia, PA, USA;Tennessee Volunteers head coach Rick Barnes reacts after defeating Virginia Cavaliers during a second round game of the men’s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Xfinity Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n

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9 \/ 10<\/p>\n

PHOTOS: Tennessee basketball versus Virginia in NCAA Tournament<\/p>\n

Tennessee Volunteers head coach Rick Barnes reacts during the second half in the second round of the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Xfinity Mobile Arena on March 22, 2026 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

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10 \/ 10<\/p>\n

Nate Ament projected as No. 18 overall pick in NBA draft<\/p>\n

Tennessee Volunteers head coach Rick Barnes and Nate Ament #10 of the Tennessee Volunteers high five during the second half in the second round of the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Xfinity Mobile Arena on March 22, 2026 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Follow Vols Wire on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0X<\/a>\u00a0(formerly Twitter).<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Vols Wire: Tennessee basketball players invited to NBA draft combine<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three Tennessee basketball players were invited to the AWS NBA draft combine. The event will take place May…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,33962,86972,18339,6,12,3408,249],"class_list":["post-726374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-draft","tag-basketball","tag-felix-okpara","tag-ja39kobi-gillespie","tag-nate-ament","tag-nba","tag-nba-draft","tag-nba-draft-combine","tag-nba-draft-lottery"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116522466067687153","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726374","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=726374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}