Louisville basketball: 5 players who could impact Jordan Nwora’s decision

Louisville basketball wing Jordan Nwora enters the NBA Combine needing a big weekend in order to securely lock his name into the first round of the 2019 NBA Draft. If he’s going to do that, he’ll likely need to outperform these players.

Louisville basketball is still awaiting the final decision on whether or not sophomore sensation will return to school for his junior season. But before that decision will be made, Nwora will be one of 60 plus players to compete in the NBA Draft Combine in Chicago.

Here at Big Red Louie, we’ve talked ad nauseam about whether Jordan Nwora will return, what teams might target him, why the combine is so important, and the impact his decision will have on the Cardinals roster next season, whether he stays or goes. Up until now, that conversation has been a moot point because mock drafts and player rankings only tell us so much about a players draft stock.

But now that the Combine is finally here, we’ll soon have a much better idea of where Jordan Nwora stands in the eyes of NBA talent evaluators, the ones who will actually be doing the selecting come Thursday, June 20th.

In order to begin drawing serious attention as a potential first rounder, something Nwora’s family has made it clear he’s going to have to do in order to stay in the draft, the 2018-19 ACC Most Improved Player of the Year will have to put together a dominant NBA Combine.

We all know about the elite three-point shooting skills that Jordan possesses, but in order to make that jump into first-round consideration, he’ll have to show a much more well-rounded, polish game than we saw this season.

If he’s going to keep his name in the draft, Nwora will need to play some of the best basketball of his career and hope that he stands above the rest of the crowd; something that’s much easier said than done.

Ranked as CBS Sports’ 60th best player in the 2019 NBA Draft and the 17th best small forward, Nwora has his work cut out for him. But who will he be primarily competing against? Will other players performance impact his draft stock?

We’ll take a closer look at five players at the Combine whose performance could have a direct impact on the draft stock of Jordan Nwora.

** – All player and position rankings mentioned in the following slides are courtesy of CBS Sports.