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The 2015 NBA Draft Combine is scheduled to take place in less than a couple of weeks; the entire event will occur between May 12-17, with the on-court evaluations (skills, shooting, strength, agility) on Thursday May 14th, and Friday May 15th.
However, the NBA has made some modifications to the combine events this year, and also the invitation process, which is causing confusion between players and agents regarding whether or not they have actually been invited or not.
According to Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress (the guru of all things NBA Draft), the NBA has sent out three different letters:
One official invite (to a very small group of players) with a questionnaire:
A small number of players received the following questionnaire.They're only ones officially invited to Chicago so far pic.twitter.com/MAUiRdGLPR
— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) May 2, 2015
Two more letters were sent out to many players as well. These are the two versions of the letter that are causing a great deal of confusion among many players and agents.
The first letter was sent out to select players seeming to indicate that they had been invite to the combine:
Here's the first version of the letter sent out to select players last night, indicating they are invited to Chicago: pic.twitter.com/VJ35GZWLuW
— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) May 2, 2015
A second letter was also sent out to some players:
Here's the 2nd version sent out to many players last night, indicating they are "under consideration" for an invite: pic.twitter.com/jx37gUgurA
— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) May 2, 2015
According to Givony, none of the recipients of either letter have officially been invited, and the official invited will be sent out this Wednesday, May 6th, to officially inform the players who have been selected to participate.
As you can see this is anything but clear, and has caused some players to post messages on social media declaring that they have been invited to the NBA Combine, when in reality, they haven't.
So, why all of the confusion?
The NBA first wants to see who will officially agree to play 5 on 5. Based on the response, they will send a fixed number of invites out.
— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) May 2, 2015
Givony believes that the NBA will invite 70 players in total to the combine, and that all but the top 20 players will be asked to play in the new 5-on-5 competition at the combine, so they are making sure that enough players agree to do so before hand.
From those 50 prospects invited to play 5 on 5 at NBA Combine, I suspect the NBA is hoping for around 32 to actually accept. 4 teams of 8.
— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) May 1, 2015
The NBA has made this process much more confusing than necessary, for sure. However, the good news is that this will all be over soon as the official invites will be notified this week, and the official list will be published shortly thereafter.
Stay tuned.