#ProTops: Jeremy Evans, TJ Price Battle in NBA G-League Playoffs
While Courtney Lee remains as the only active WKU player in the NBA, Jeremy Evans and TJ Price have been working away in the NBA G-League developing and improving on their game in hopes of landing on an NBA roster.
Jeremy Evans has been in the NBA previously, but hopes to find his way back onto a roster somewhere. He was drafted by the Utah Jazz in the second round of the 2010 NBA Draft and won the NBA dunk contest in 2012.
After spending five years with Utah, Evans has jumped from Dallas to Indiana (where he was a perennial “DNP — Coaches Decision”) before landing in the Hawks organization with the Erie BayHawks in Pennsylvania.
In his first year with the ‘Hawks, he’s averaged 15.3 points and 9.7 rebounds per game.
TJ Price on the other hand hasn’t been on an NBA roster yet, but he has been on the Orlando Magic’s summer league roster and has played abroad in France as well. He has come back, lost a little weight, and is now currently playing for the Orlando Magic’s G-League affiliate, the Lakeland Magic. This season he has averaged nine points per game along with two assists and two rebounds.
It was a mere matter of fate that the two would meet in the G-League playoffs.
The BayHawks (29–22) won the Southeast Divisional Championship to earn their spot in the playoffs while the Magic (28–23) were able to clinch a #6 seed in the playoffs and came into the game on a six game winning streak.
For those uninitiated, the first round of the G-League playoffs are played on the higher team’s court and are single-elimination, so Erie hosted Lakeland in Saturday’s matchup that was aired nationally on ESPNews. Winner advances, loser goes home and their season is over.
Both teams fought hard throughout the game and it was very back and forth but it all came down to the last few minutes of play. The BayHawks led by nine with 50.8 seconds remaining but the Magic wouldn’t let their season end without a fight and were able to get within four points with 14.8 seconds left thanks to a Price layup to make the score 94–90.
Unfortunately for the Magic, some terrible turnovers led to some easy free throws by the BayHawks and Erie was able to hold on to win 96–90 and will advance to the next round.
TJ Price finished with 14 points on 6-of-13 shooting (2-of-4 from downtown) along with three assists and Jeremy Evans only finished with nine points but did tally 10 rebounds.
Evans may not have played as well as usual in this game, but the Atlanta Hawks see enough in him to call him to their roster, per the BayHawks Head coach:
While we hated to see one of these guys lose, we hope to see these guys continue to compete at a high level and hopefully join Courtney Lee in the NBA full time. Both of these former WKU stars have shown what they’re capable of and if given the opportunity, they would most certainly make Hilltopper fans everywhere proud in the NBA.
Full stats from the game can be found here.
