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Get to know your 2018 NBA Draft Lottery Picks: Alabama’s Collin Sexton
- Updated: August 30, 2017
Photo: USA Basketball
In just a few months, the college basketball season will tip off, and for some fans, it’ll be like the first day of college itself. You’re excited, jittery even, but you have no idea who anyone is, and you’re real scared.
Luckily in this age of technology, incoming freshmen have Facebook. And college hoops fans have Roundball Daily. Get to know the best players of the upcoming season (and in all likelihood the 2018 NBA lottery picks) with our helpful series.
Get to know: Wendell Carter Jr. , Mohamed Bamba, DeAndre Ayton, Robert Williams, Kevin Knox, Michael Porter Jr., Tremont Waters
Collin Sexton
Height/Weight: 6-2, 185 lbs.
School: Alabama
The Atlanta-area native was the first one-and-done-level recruit Avery Johnson landed at Alabama, and he’s the biggest prize in a breakthrough top-5 recruiting class that might even force Nick Saban to crack a smile. Maybe.
Johnson, who got a raw deal when he was let go as head coach of the Dallas Mavericks in 2008 after leading them to the Finals in 2006, is proving once again that he’s got the talent (and recruiting chops) to become one of the best coaches in the country. This class is being hailed as the best in Alabama program history.
Whether or not it’ll show on the court is yet to be determined, and it won’t be easy for the Tide, who’ll still have to contend with Kentucky, up-and-coming programs like Florida and South Carolina, and Missouri and the nation’s No. 1 recruit in Michael Porter Jr.—and that’s just in the SEC East.
The SEC has been the most vastly-improved league in the country over the past few years, and will have a legitimate argument as the best in the nation in 2018, when you factor in Auburn, LSU, Texas A&M, and the Tide in the West.
If ‘Bama wants to navigate through all of that, they’ll rely on Sexton, a scoring point guard who’s drawn comparisons to Eric Bledsoe.
Like the former Kentucky scorer, Sexton is strong, tough to move, and easy-athletic. He’s an elite finisher around the rim, using an array of moves to get buckets over taller defenders. He’s got great bounce, can finish on alley-oops, and hunts contact. He’s a reliable shooter, uses hesitation and speed changes very well, and is the best athlete in most gyms he steps into.
He’s also got tremendous condidence and should succeed right away in the SEC. Though the leap to college is always a difficult one, he’ll have great coaching, and we’d be surprised if he didn’t help lead Alabama back to the NCAA’s for the first time since 2012. We’d also be surprised if he’s back with the Tide in 2019.
