CBS wasn\u2019t buying it either. <\/a><\/p>\nSpeaking of stock that could impact a stay-or-go decision, there were reports this week that Kentucky\u2019s Malachi Moreno had attracted attention from teams in the mid to late first round. While that certainly may be true, many of those teams also hold second-round picks, and many of the scouts I spoke to expressed skepticism that Moreno would crack the first round this year.Instead, those reports could be viewed as negotiating leverage with Kentucky in order to command the highest possible valuation for Moreno\u2019s return to college and Lexington. The fact that Moreno chose not to play five-on-five, while higher-ranked bigs like Rueben Chinyelu, Tarris Reed, and Flory Bidunga all opted in, was also being viewed as an indication that Moreno\u2019s representation was being very deliberate about controlling how the big man was being perceived. Ultimately, most still expect him to return to school.<\/p>\n
The issue is that Malachi\u2019s NIL has long been sorted.<\/p>\n
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Malachi Moreno\u2019s NIL set in stone<\/p>\n
Back in early April, when Moreno first decided that he would be testing the Draft waters, his agent and an NIL lawyer worked hard with Kentucky and JMI to secure his NIL if he decided to come back. So, there is no reason for his agent to now be making a ploy for more money. He isn\u2019t in the portal, and he can\u2019t enter now since the window is closed.<\/p>\n
If the agents are getting these reports out there, it could be to try to manipulate the market for other teams to think he may go sooner, but that really doesn\u2019t make much sense either.<\/p>\n
I think the feedback he is getting is real and valuable, but I do think he is also right on the edge of that 1st round bubble. And if he slips into the 2nd, then he makes more money at Kentucky and gets a chance at a weaker class next year.<\/p>\n
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I do think he ultimately comes back, but I don\u2019t think it is as clear-cut as any of us thought a month ago. Kentucky needs him to return, and they need him to take a step forward. If he doesn\u2019t, it puts a lot of pressure on Franck Kepnang to stay healthy and produce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Malachi Moreno announced he would be heading to the NBA Draft and the Combine, most thought he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,234,88133,12713,6,12,191],"class_list":["post-736682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-draft","tag-basketball","tag-kentucky","tag-louisiana-state","tag-malachi-moreno","tag-nba","tag-nba-draft","tag-new-york-knicks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116589598066187178","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736682","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=736682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}