Kevin Porter Jr. headlines 2019 NBA Draft prospects with Washington high school basketball ties

The 2019 NBA Draft begins on Thursday at the Barclays Center in New York, and several college basketball players with Washington high school ties hope to hear their names called.

Sixty players will hear their names called during the two-round draft, which starts Thursday at 4 p.m. The draft will be televised on ESPN.

Here is a look at nine NBA Draft hopefuls with Washington high school basketball ties:

Kevin Porter Jr., USC

Measurables: Guard, 6-foot-6, 213 pounds
High school: Rainier Beach
The skinny: Porter Jr. is quick to wow with high-flying dunks and an athleticism that makes him a near-consensus first round selection, even as a one-and-done out of USC. The guard, who was the highest-ranked recruit to choose USC since Demar Derozan in 2008, scored at a 9.5 points per game clip, along with 4.0 rebounds on 47 percent shooting. At Rainier Beach, Porter Jr. was a first-team all state selection.

Matisse Thybulle, Washington

Measurables: Guard, 6-foot-5, 195 pounds
High school: Eastside Catholic
The skinny: Of all the potential draftees with Washington ties, Matisse Thybulle is perhaps the most ready-made selection. After four years at UW, the last of which he earned Pac-12 defensive player of the year, Thybulle projects as a three-and-D-type role player who can immediately contribute. He averaged 9.1 points, 3.5 steals and 2.3 blocks for the Huskies, and was the team’s lock-down defender.

Jaylen Nowell, Washington

Measurables: Guard, 6-foot-4, 202 pounds
High school: Garfield
The skinny: Nowell garnered Pac-12 player of the year recognition in his sophomore campaign, in which he averaged 16.2 points, 5.3 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.3 steals per game on 50.2 percent shooting. The combo guard helped lead UW to its first NCAA Tournament appearance in eight seasons. Nowell declared for the draft after the season with the option of returning, but opted to forgo his two years of eligibility and remain in the draft, where he is projected by some as an early second round selection.

Jontay Porter, Missouri

Measurables: Forward, 6-foot-10, 236 pounds
High school: Nathan Hale (one year)
The skinny: Jontay Porter’s stay on the Washington prep hoops scene was short, but certainly memorable. Porter, the younger brother of Michael Porter Jr., perhaps the highest-profile high school player in state history, was a part of Garfield’s 2015 3A state championship season in which it went 29-0 and finished as the No. 1 ranked school in the country. The younger Porter was a five-star recruit and reclassified to go to the University of Missouri a year earlier in the class of 2017. Despite missing the 2018-19 college basketball season with a torn ACL, Porter projected high enough to decide to remain in the draft.

Jalen McDaniels, San Diego State

Measureables: Forward, 6-foot-10, 190 pounds
High school: Federal Way
The skinny: McDaniels strung together a three-year run at San Diego State that capped with him averaging 15.9 points and 8.3 boards a game this past season. The Aztecs only went to the NCAA Tournament once in McDaniels time there, but the 6-foot-10 forward boasts the size and length (7-foot wingspan) to make him a second-round projection.

Tramaine Isabell Jr., Saint Louis

Measurables: Point guard, 6-foot-1, 180 pounds
High school: Lakeside/Garfield
The skinny: The former Garfield standout bounced around from Missouri (two seasons), to Drexel, then finally Saint Louis as a graduate transfer. With Drexel, the guard averaged 21 points, 7.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game, which earned him second team all-Colonial Athletic Association honors. As a senior, he managed 13.7 points, 4.1 boards and 3.6 assists per game.

Daulton Hommes, Point Loma Nazarene

Measureables: Guard, 6-foot-8, 215 pounds
High school: Lynden Christian
The skinny: Hommes has perhaps the most extraordinary story of the bunch, going from a walk-on at Division II Western Washington after back-to-back season-ending knee injuries thwarted his last two years of high school, to Division II national player of the year at Point Loma. Hommes went through the pre-draft Undergraduate Advisory Committee, which he said told him he had a 30 percent chance of being drafted in the second round. Hommes is a sharp-shooter, shooting 47 percent from 3-point range this past season, but will need to convince teams of his ability to defend at the NBA level.

Ar’mond Davis, UC Santa Barbara

Measurables: Guard, 6-foot-6, 193 pounds
High school: Foss (Tacoma)
The skinny: After bouncing around to stops at Southern Idaho and Alabama, Davis found a home at UC Santa Barbara, where he led the team in scoring with 14.2 points and nearly six rebounds per game. Davis was a first-team all-state selection as a senior at Foss, posting 26.3 points and 6.3 boards per game.

Robert Franks, Washington State

Measurables: Forward, 6-foot-9, 225 pounds
High school: Evergreen (Vancouver)
The skinny: Franks was the most impactful player on a team that scraped the bottom of the Pac-12 throughout his college years there. Still, the Vancouver native averaged 21.6 points and 7.2 rebounds per game (both team highs) for the Cougars. Franks was named first-team all-Pac 12 after leading the conference in scoring, a facet of his game he hopes will make him the first WSU player drafted since Klay Thompson in 2011.

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Andy Buhler is a reporter for Scorebook Live Washington. To hear him every week on the Scorebook Live Today podcast, subscribe here. Follow him on Twitter @AndyBuhler and reach him via email at andy@scorebooklive.com.