NBA Rumors: No. 1 NBA Draft Pick Is ‘Tanking on a Personal Level’

If it appears that Kansas coach Bill Self does not quite know what to make of his star player, guard Darryn Peterson, he can take some comfort: The rest of the basketball world does not seem to know what’s going on with Peterson, either. But that’s tipped off a slew of NBA rumors about Peterson.

Over the course of this NCAA season, Peterson–who is the favorite to be the No. 1 pick in the June NBA draft–has repeatedly asked out of games, claiming that he has cramps and other ailments. It happened again on Wednesday, when Peterson was 7-for-12 in for 23 points in 18 minutes, then claimed again that he was cramping and asked out of the game.

Said Self: “I didn’t anticipate that tonight at all. I thought he was good to go. But we only got 18 minutes out of him. That’s disappointing because he could have had a really good night.”

The disappointment is growing, and spreading into the NBA. Scouts and executives don’t quite know what’s going on with Peterson, either, and for the first few months of the season, there was a tendency to brush off Peterson’s approach to playing and not playing for the Jayhawks as an issue that would just work itself out.

NBA Rumors Already Building on Darryn Peterson

That’s not so much the case anymore. One NBA scout said that, just as there is major concern about tanking in the league, there are similar concerns about Peterson: “It feels like he is tanking his own stock, he is tanking on a persona level. Maybe he’s to try to boost his chances of picking where he lands. It would be a weird strategy. We won’t know the lottery order for three months. But there’s no other explanation for what’s going on.”

Teams presume that they will get medical records on Peterson before the draft. Those could be tinkered with, though, or withheld except for a few NBA teams for which Peterson would like to play. But teams could get around those restrictions, and even if Peterson won’t work out for some teams, those teams could pick him, anyway.

Either way, Peterson is fueling plenty of NBA rumors. “I don’t think he is the No. 1 pick anymore, not when you have guys like AJ Dybantsa and (Cam) Boozer playing the way they are,” one NBA executive said. At some point, you have to just look at the record and say, ‘This kid has talent, but he does not want to play or he gets manipulated by his agent or he’s in it for the money.’ Whatever it is, you wash your hands of him and wish him luck and move on.”

GettyBYU forward AJ Dybantsa

LeBron James Future Could Depend on Lakers Treatment

Speaking of NBA rumors and No. 1 picks, one of the great No. 1 picks of all time remains LeBron James of the Lakers, and one of the fun parlor games of the coming weeks and months will be trying to divine where James will play next season, whether it’s in Cleveland with the Cavs, somewhere else altogether, or nowhere at all–James could retire.

But there is an insistence from many that James has not given up on staying with the Lakers, and the Lakers have not given up on bringing James back. It’s a less fun storyline, but it can’t be ruled out.

Much of how things play out will depend on the Lakers’ approach to free agency, whether they prioritize recruiting James to stay or looking for younger players who fit the Luka Doncic timeline in a neater fashion.  As one NBA source said, James would probably most like to retire with the Lakers, but he is not going to be the third or fourth choice in free agency.

“It’s not like if they get turned down by Peyton Watson in free agency, they can fall back on LeBron,” the source said. “He’ll already be gone.”

Sean Deveney is a veteran sports reporter covering the NBA, NFL and MLB for Heavy.com. He has written for Heavy since 2019 and has more than two decades of experience covering the NBA, including 17 years as the lead NBA reporter for the Sporting News. Deveney is the author of 7 nonfiction books, including “Fun City,” “Before Wrigley became Wrigley,” and “Facing Michael Jordan.” More about Sean Deveney