BIRMINGHAM, Ala. \u2014 Alabama guard Labaron Philon shocked the college basketball world on May 28, as he withdrew from the 2025 NBA Draft.<\/p>\n
It was just a couple of hours before the withdrawal deadline, and he became the Crimson Tide’s fifth returning player. Philon will be a sophomore this upcoming season and is expected to be Alabama’s primary scoring option, ball-handler and playmaker.<\/p>\n
A big reason for his withdrawal came down to his abilities as a leader. Being the Crimson Tide’s No. 1 option in 2025-26 should help raise his draft stock.<\/p>\n
“All of the feedback that I got, it was very important to me, because coming back, I knew it was going to be more of a leadership thing,” Philon said at SEC Media Day. “That’s what most of the feedback I got in being a leader.<\/p>\n
“Trying to see if I can run a team at a young age, just being more of a communicator and talking more to teammates. I’m making sure that I’m doing a good job of that and coach Oats really gets on me about that a lot. I’m really just trying to develop more in that role and get comfortable.”<\/p>\n
Four of last season’s starters exhausted their collegiate eligibility. The Crimson Tide had four outgoing transfers but also five incoming transfers, and the team also signed four recruits to its freshmen class.<\/p>\n
This fresh group has helped Philon grow as a leader.<\/p>\n
“All of the teammates we got, they’re mostly new or incoming freshmen,” Philon said. “I’m pretty sure those guys listen to me at a very high rate and they believe what I say. So just seeing that has been a good thing ever since I got back. Being able to lead those guys is so fun.”<\/p>\n
Philon became a household name over the course of last season and his three SEC Freshman of the Week honors reflect that. He was given expectations by analysts to be a one-and-done player and enter the 2025 NBA Draft but obviously Philon changed his mind. He finished his freshman season averaging 10.4 points, 3.3 rebounds, 3.8 assists and a Crimson Tide-best 1.3 steals per game.<\/p>\n
However, he shot just 31.5 percent from deep. He’s previously spoken about his goals of improving his shot behind the arc. In addition to leadership, NBA teams wanted to see an increase in Philon’s abilities from downtown.<\/p>\n
“A lot of these teams, when I was going through the process, they knew I could shoot the ball, but that I couldn’t shoot it that great last season. But this season, I’m looking forward to shooting it more. … It’s really just more about confidence and knowing when to shoot the right shot.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BIRMINGHAM, Ala. \u2014 Alabama guard Labaron Philon shocked the college basketball world on May 28, as he withdrew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-213580","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}