FARGO — As of Monday afternoon, Grant Nelson had workouts scheduled with 12 NBA teams between now and the June 25-26 draft. His agent, Max Wiepking, said there could be more added.
"As we get closer, maybe more teams will bring him in. He's got a lot of interest from just about every team about getting him into their facility and getting in for a workout," said Wiepking, of the Gersh Sports agency. "A lot of teams have him kind of in that second round range right now. We'll see. I think there is going to be a lot of trades on the week of the draft so that order may get bounced around a lot."
Yes, to answer that thought in your head, Nelson's college career is finally over. Five years is a long time.
And, yes, here we go again talking about his NBA Draft possibilities.
The Devils Lake High School product who began his college career with three years at North Dakota State and finished with two seasons at Alabama is going through the rigors again of trying to kickstart a professional basketball career.
Nelson dipped his toes in the water in 2023, when he accepted an invitation to the NBA Draft Combine in Chicago and declared for the draft before withdrawing to play more college ball. He was technically still a Bison then, but had entered the transfer portal and after a whirlwind recruiting process ended up with the Crimson Tide.
He returned to Alabama for a final season after which he was again invited to the combine, where he again showed the tantalizing nuggets that have NBA general managers and coaches intrigued.
Nelson is 6-foot-11, long, athletic, rangy and can handle the ball. At the combine, his shuttle run of 2.58 seconds was reportedly the "fastest time in the history" of the NBA Draft Combine. The pieces are there.
"The size, athleticism and skill level. That's what teams are really gravitating to and it fits what the NBA style of play is now," Wiepking said.
Former North Dakota State and Alabama Crimson Tide forward Grant Nelson (61) participates in the NBA Draft Combine on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, at Wintrust Arena in Chicago.
The ongoing knock is Nelson's jump shot. It needs to be better because, again, that's where the NBA game stands. Big men shoot 3-pointers.
"The biggest thing for him is that he's come a long way working on his jump shot. He kind of had a catapult at North Dakota State and now it's a little more compact from what he was doing at Alabama. It's really just ironing out that jump shot, getting more consistent there," Wiepking said. "The good news is a lot of teams feel like if they get their hands on him and get him in their developmental program that the jump shot is not something they are overly concerned about. It just needs to become a more consistent asset for him."
CBS Sports has Nelson ranked as the 52nd best draft prospect while ESPN has him at 65th.
None of the major mock drafts, however, have Nelson being taken in the two-round affair that'll include 59 picks (30 in the first round, 29 in the second round because the New York Knicks forfeited their second-round pick).
That's the bad news.
The good news the guys putting together the mocks don't actually make decisions for NBA front offices.
"We're focusing on teams with picks in the 40s and 50s and teams with multiple second-round picks. There's a few teams that don't have any second rounders that just really like him that he's going to work out for, just in case he does go undrafted. That would put him in those two-way conversations," Wiepking said. "That's kind of where he's at right now and just kind of flying all over the country and going team to team to get in their building, do interviews and work out for them."
North Dakota State forward Grant Nelson, right, drives against Oral Roberts guard Max Abmas in the Summit League men's basketball championship Tuesday, March 7, 2023, at the Denny Sanford Premier Center and Sioux Falls, S.D.
"Those two-way conversations" refer to players on two-way contracts that allow them to play in the NBA's developmental G League while being available to play on the NBA team. Each team is allowed two such players, meaning 60 more jobs for young players.
With major player movement and shuffling of draft picks expected in the next few weeks, it's nearly impossible to project which teams will be selecting where. But as the draft order stands right now Utah, Cleveland, Orlando and Memphis each have two second-round choices between the 40th and 59th picks. That would check both of Wiepking's boxes.
The new landscape of college sports has changed the NBA Draft, to the benefit of a player like Nelson. With easy transferring and millions of dollars available through NIL, players with eligibility remaining who are not projected to be top-20 picks are returning to college. That opens second-round slots.
"They're getting far more money to go back and improve their draft stock than what a second-round or even late-first round pick would make for one year," Wiepking said.
The 30th overall pick in the 2024 draft, the last choice of the first round, made $2,078,600 his first year. College players are making more than that. These are different days, friends.
"I think he's going to have a long NBA career, but we have to just kind of wait to see how things roll for him," Wiepking said. "He's definitely squarely in that second round on a lot of teams' boards and there's others that don't have him in that range. Others even say they wouldn't be shocked if he's picked in the 30s. But it's all kind of tongue in cheek now with a lot of these teams. Once we get to the week of the draft we'll get a better sense of where he stands."