Georgia Tech’s Thaddeus Young enters NBA draft, but he won’t hire agent

Thaddeus Young has made himself eligible for the NBA draft, but the Georgia Tech freshman is keeping open his option to return to the Yellow Jackets.

Young averaged 14.4 points and 4.9 rebounds last season, and will not hire an agent to protect his right to withdraw from the draft by June 18. The draft is June 29.

officials before making a decision on whether to hire an agent, which would end his NCAA eligibility.

“What we’re trying to do is get a more definitive idea where he’ll shake out,” Tech coach Paul Hewitt said. “Because of the way the NBA rules are set up, he nor his family could talk to anybody [in the NBA] unless he puts his name in. Now he can find out for sure what’s what.”

“I think the way he’s conducting himself, he’s planning on being in school unless somebody tells him something that could really change his mind.”

Young’s freshman teammate, point guard Javaris Crittenton, has until Sunday to decide whether to enter the draft. Hewitt said he has not made a decision.

Young’s father tipped a Memphis TV station about his son’s plan.

“They have a few teams out there that could use a small forward, and we want to see if his name will be in that number,” Felton Young told Channel 24, an ABC affiliate. “If not, then come June 15th we’ll withdraw his name and send him back to school.”

A few hours later, Tech officials released a statement saying Young was going to enter the draft early.

Young said in the statement, “I’m enjoying my experience at Georgia Tech, both with the basketball program and in school. Right now, my focus is on finishing out this semester and then gathering more information from the NBA people.”

Young and Hewitt may have preferred this news wait until after Tech finishes final exams next week.

“One of the reasons we did not want to make an announcement is he’s preparing for finals,” Hewitt said. “The NBA said nothing would be announced until May 3 [in terms of an official list of underclassmen entering the draft]. We were hoping to put the paperwork in, lay low, and make an announcement then.”

Hewitt said he did not know if Young will participate in the NBA pre-draft camp May 29-June 1 in Orlando to elevate his stock, or merely take a physical and go through interviews there.

Widely projected as a top seven pick a year ago if not for the NBA’s new rule mandating that all players must wait at least one year after graduating from high school before entering the NBA, Young is not projected that highly in any major mock drafts this spring.

He generally is ranked between No. 14, the end of the lottery, to the mid-20s.

Beginning last summer, Young said that he would consider entering the NBA draft after his freshman year if he projected as a lottery pick. He was picked before the season by ACC media to be the league’s rookie of the year, but finished sixth in postseason voting for the All-Rookie team.

His season ended with an 8-point effort in a loss to UNLV in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

“He’s going to make an educated decision,” Hewitt said. “If you were going to judge it, you would say this kid is coming back to school.”