he NBA Draft begins Wednesday night in New York, and a local standout could soon hear his name called.<\/p>\n
Greeneville native Ja’Kobi Gillespie is projected to be an early second-round selection when the draft continues Thursday night. The former Tennessee guard enters the draft after a standout collegiate career that elevated his stock among NBA scouts and front offices.<\/p>\n
Gillespie plans to spend draft night surrounded by family and friends as he waits to learn where his professional basketball journey will begin.<\/p>\n
The East Tennessee product emerged as one of the Volunteers’ top contributors, earning attention for his scoring ability, playmaking skills and leadership on the court. Those attributes have helped position him as a potential second-round pick heading into draft week.<\/p>\n
While the first round takes center stage Wednesday night, local basketball fans will be closely watching Thursday’s proceedings to see if Gillespie becomes the latest player from the region to reach the NBA.<\/p>\n
News 5’s Andrew Watson will have reaction from the Greeneville native after his selection on News 5 at 11.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"he NBA Draft begins Wednesday night in New York, and a local standout could soon hear his name…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":722052,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-722051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=722051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/722052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=722051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}