Agbaji, Braun Selected in First Round of NBA Draft

The Kansas teammates were taken with the No. 14 and No. 21 picks of the NBA Draft.

Two Kansas City natives. Two sub-100 recruits. Two national champions. And now two first-round draft picks in the NBA.

It would appear that both made smart decisions. A year after testing the waters, Ochai Agbaji is a lottery pick as the Cleveland Cavaliers selected Ochai Agbaji with the No. 14 pick in Thursday’s NBA Draft. Meanwhile, Christian Braun chose to stay in the draft and go out a champion and now he has found his new home with Denver at the No. 21 pick.

Agbaji enters a situation with two talented ball-handling guards in Collin Sexton and Darius Garland and a rising young big man in Evan Mobley. Agbaji can make an early impact as an athletic wing that can play defense and hit shots if defenses sag off to pay more attention to Cleveland’s ball handlers.

Meanwhile, Braun joins a team that, when healthy, is competing at the top of the Western Conference with a two-time MVP in Nikola Jokic and dynamic point guard Jamal Murray. Kansas fans, go ahead and spend your summer daydreaming of Jokic hitting an open Braun on a skip pass or long outlet in transition.

It was a big night for Kansas basketball, which saw two players taken in the first round since 2014 when Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid went first and third overall. And even better, both of these players went to teams that figure to be in the playoff discussion for the long term, meaning that they should get plenty of opportunities to shine on the big stage for as long as they possibly can.

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