By Keith Taylor
Kentucky Today
Jayden Quaintance became Kentucky coach Mark Pope’s first opening-round NBA Draft pick on Tuesday night.
Quaintance was selected as the 20th overall pick by the San Antonio Spurs and will join former Kentucky standouts De’Aaron Fox and Keldon Johnson. The Spurs lost to the New York Knicks in the NBA Finals earlier this month. San Antonio went 62-20 last season.
During his short time at Kentucky, Quaintance battled knee injuries and appeared in just four games. He scored 10 points, grabbed eight rebounds and blocked a pair of shots in his debut in a win over St. John’s in the CBS Sports Classic last December. Quaintance averaged five points per game for the Wildcats. He also appeared in games against Bellarmine, Alabama and Missouri before swelling in his injured knee forced Quaintance to miss the remainder of the season.
Prior to transferring to Kentucky, Quaintance started 24 games at Arizona State as a freshman and averaged 9.4 points and 7.9 rebounds a game. He was an All-Big 12 Freshman team performer and set the school record for blocked shots in a season with 63 and recorded 7.9 rebounds per contest.
Despite his history of injuries, Spurs General Manager Brian Wright is confident Quaintance will rebound and be cautious about his future development.
“He came in and visited, so you know our doctors have spent some time, but we’ll get the people much smarter than us to take a look and come up with the best plan for him, and if that is the best plan for him, then we will do that and take a very long-term approach,” Wright said. “He’s got tremendous, tremendous talent and unfortunately that was cut short a little bit due to injury.”