Milwaukee Bucks: Revisiting 2018 NBA Draft riser Jerome Robinson

No one has arguably risen as much as Boston College guard Jerome Robinson in the last couple of weeks leading up to the 2018 NBA Draft and there’s been a sufficient amount of buzz linking him to the Milwaukee Bucks.

Seeing that the 2018 NBA Draft is now roughly less than 36 hours away, speculation has hit a fever pitch as it relates to the draft strategies for each and every team around the league.

As it relates to the Milwaukee Bucks, speculation is the only thing fans have had to go off of, given the fact that the organization decided to keep the various prospects they brought in for individual workouts in Milwaukee this year behind closed doors to local media.

Of course, details and tidbits have nonetheless trickled out, but for the most part, the Bucks’ front office team have kept their intentions close to the vest all throughout this year’s draft cycle.

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With all that in mind, there’s one particular prospect who has made an incredible push in the last few weeks in the process and has been linked to the Bucks in consistent fashion recently, this being Boston College product Jerome Robinson.

When we originally profiled Robinson two weeks ago as part of our ongoing draft coverage here at BTBP, which you can read here, it was originally framed as a prospect that might motivate the Bucks to land an additional pick deeper in the draft if they were interested in him, considering he had then been viewed as a late first rounder at best.

In the time since then, however, Robinson has propelled well beyond that outlook as he has reportedly impressed plenty of teams to boost his stock and overall range in a considerable way.

That’s evidenced by the fact that Robinson has now become a mainstay in the middle of the first round across various mock drafts around the NBA universe, even going as high as a lottery pick in one instance.

Additionally, it was first reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Jonathan Givony late last week that Robinson is one of 20 prospects that have garnered an invite to the NBA green room on draft night Thursday.

Now having launched himself into consideration in the middle of the first round, Sam Vecenie of The Athletic, Jeremy Woo of Sports Illustrated and Chris Stone of the Sporting News have all mocked Robinson to Milwaukee in their latest mock drafts, respectively.

The reported factors behind Robinson’s ascendance are a result of him making a strong impression throughout all facets of the pre-draft process as Vecenie explained in his reasoning behind the pick:

"“Robinson has risen to where he’ll most likely be a top-20 pick. NBA executives point to terrific interviews and high intelligence as the factors that have pushed him upward, as well as strong workouts in which he’s displayed the ability to shoot from all over the floor. Teams are buying into him as a high-level offensive creator who could become a starter-level combo guard.He has to improve defensively before he gets to that point, though, as his play on that end the last two years was rough. Of course, Robinson displayed that scoring ability in the ACC, where he averaged 20.7 points a night with elite efficiency. It’s not out of the question that he goes even higher than this.”"

Woo relayed that Robinson is among the prospects that the Bucks are considering at 17th overall and we already know that he has worked out for the team as Adam Himmelsbach over at the Boston Globe included in his profile on the North Carolina native late last week (which I personally recommend reading, as an aside).

Without rehashing all that Robinson has to offer as we did in greater detail the first time around, it’s very apparent that we should modify our shortlist of prospects the Bucks may end up taking on Thursday night to include Robinson.

For those still skeptical given the hectic nature of parsing through mock drafts for information in the days leading up to the NBA Draft, Bucks general manager Jon Horst provided an interesting answer when asked about what he’s holding in high esteem when it comes to this year’s pick as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Matt Velazquez relayed:

"“Most important to me, I think like a home run pick for us would be a player that can impact our team this year as a rookie and that’s a hard thing to find at 17,” Horst said Tuesday at the team’s practice facility. “But if we can find someone that can do that, that also has the ability to get better throughout their rookie (year) and play on their rookie contract and then hopefully have a long career with the Bucks, that would be a home run.”"

It’s important to note that all prospects are viewed differently by every front office around the league and they hold different ideologies as well, but the fact that Horst and his front office team are seemingly valuing a player who can hit the ground running upon coming to Milwaukee is a small piece of information to stow away in the back of your mind.

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If that’s truly the case, that may only boost the likelihood that Robinson may end up in a Bucks uniform in a few days. As per usual, we’ll be following along if and when any developments surface in the time that remains before Thursday night.