{"id":681693,"date":"2026-05-19T22:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T22:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/681693\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T22:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T22:21:11","slug":"michigans-morez-johnson-jr-staying-in-nba-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/681693\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan’s Morez Johnson Jr. Staying In NBA Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

After helping Michigan win the NCAA title last month, sophomore big man Morez Johnson Jr.<\/a> will keep his name in the 2026 NBA draft, his agents at CAA Basketball tell Jeff Borzello of ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am excited to chase my lifelong dream of playing in the NBA,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cEvery stop along my journey has prepared me for this moment, and I\u2019m extremely grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Borzello writes, Johnson has been rising up NBA draft boards after last week\u2019s combine, where he measured 6\u20199\u2033 and 251 pounds, with a 7\u20193.5\u2033 wingspan and an 8\u201911\u201d standing reach. He also performed well in shooting drills, according to ESPN\u2019s Jeremy Woo<\/a>, who has the 20-year-old going No. 17 overall in his latest mock draft.<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, Kevin O\u2019Connor of Yahoo Sports<\/a> also has the Thunder selecting Johnson 17th overall, though he writes that there\u2019s been a lot of speculation about Oklahoma City potentially looking to trade the pick for future selections. Johnson is considered a strong, versatile defender, per O\u2019Connor.<\/p>\n

Johnson, an Illinois native, spent his freshman season with the Illini but wasn\u2019t a major factor in the team\u2019s offense. He averaged 7.0 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.1 blocks in 17.6 minutes per game across 30 appearances in 2024\/25.<\/p>\n

The forward\/center was more productive offensively for the Wolverines in \u201925\/26, averaging 13.1 PPG, 7.3 RPG and 1.1 BPG in 25.6 MPG. He appeared in all 40 games for Michigan while showing drastic improvement at the free throw line (61.8% as a freshman vs. 78.2% as a sophomore).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After helping Michigan win the NCAA title last month, sophomore big man Morez Johnson Jr. will keep his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,285593,590,85],"class_list":["post-681693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-morez-johnson","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681693","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=681693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}