NBA Draft 2022: Wizards to bring in six players for a pre-draft workout Wednesday

The Wizards will bring in six NBA Draft hopefuls for a workout on Wednesday. The group consists of Eric Ayala, Anthony Duruji, Grant Golden, Brandon Horvath, Darryl Morsell, and D’Shawn Schwartz. These players are all older, born in either 1998 or 1999, with multiple years of college basketball experience.

Local basketball fans may be familiar with several of these players. Ayala was essentially a four-year starter for the University of Maryland. He averaged 14.7 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 2.1 assists as a senior. He shot 33.9% from three and 43,6% from the field.

Morsell also spent four seasons at Maryland before transferring to Marquette to use a fifth year of COVID eligibility. As a super senior, he averaged 13.4 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2,5 assists, and 1.2 steals. He shot 34.7% from three while playing high-end perimeter defense.

Personally, I think he’s the most likely of this group to ever play meaningful NBA minutes. He is an NBA-caliber defender despite being a bit undersized but will need his three-point shooting to continue to improve. If you saw Maryland play against Connecticut in the NCAA tournament two years ago, Morsell essentially shut down James Bouknight, an eventual lottery pick.

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Golden played his first game for Richmond in 2016. He’s a smart, savvy creator out of the high- and helped facilitate Richmond’s offense. This past season he averaged 13.7 points, 6 rebounds, and 2.9 assists. Grant is not particularly athletic nor is he a floor-spacer. Despite that, I think he would be a great option for the Capital City Go-Go and be a nice addition to the Wizards’ Summer League team due to his basketball IQ and court vision.

Duruji is an NBA-caliber athlete and good defender but that’s about it at this point. He projects as a 3-and-D wing who, unfortunately, doesn’t provide much of the “3” at this point. This past season he averaged 8.6 points and 4.1 rebounds. He made 33.8% of his threes but on only 2.2 attempts per game. Duruji was born in Germantown, MD.

Schwartz spent four seasons at Colorado before transferring to George Mason this past season. He averaged 15.5 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 2.1 assists. He also shot 38% from three on 6.7 attempts per game. I saw him play in person at the A10 tournament where he scored 7 points on 3-for-8 shooting. Schwartz didn’t necessarily pop off the page as an NBA player during that performance.

Brandon Horvath is from Maryland (Southern High School) and spent his first four seasons at UMBC before following Head Coach Ryan Odom to Utah State for his last year of eligibility. Horvath averaged 13.9 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 2.7 assists. He shot 31.6% from three on 3.4 attempts.

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In my opinion, all six guys are likely to go undrafted and aren’t in consideration with the Wizards’ second-round pick. These all seem like the type of undrafted free agents the team will keep in mind for their Summer League and the Capital City Go-Go rosters. The Wizards also typically reuse local players to fill out additional workout groups later in the process so it’s likely we see some of these names again over the next few weeks.