Analyzing top 6 uncommitted players in 2021 NCAA Basketball recruiting class
CG Jaden Hardy – No. 3 overall prospect
Teams involved: Kentucky, UCLA, Oregon, and the G League
The top available player in the 2021 class, Hardy is an incredible offensive talent. Can score everywhere at an efficient level and can play on and off the ball. He has good size at 6’4 and is a two-way capable player and projects very well to the NBA level, potentially a multi-time all-star at the shooting guard position.
There are several reasons why Hardy has flown under the radar up to this point. The first is that he didn’t have a senior season at Coronado in Nevada due to covid and secondly, there has been a near consensus opinion that the top-5 overall recruit will be going to the NBA G League and playing for the Ignite Team.
Hardy will be looking to replicate Jalen Green, a five-star recruit out of high school that went that route a year ago and excelled in the G League, locking himself as a top-5 pick in the 2021 NBA Draft. However, he had an interesting tweet about not being a No. 1 overall pick because he didn’t get a national spotlight by playing in college.
Still, spending time in the developmental league likely made Green more NBA-ready than the other prospects, something Hardy will be hoping to do. His brother Amauri played at Oregon this past season, while the UCLA Bruins are coming off a Final Four appearance. But they have a five-star prospect of their own coming in with Peyton Watson so Hardy may not have the ball in his hands a ton with the Bruins.
The Kentucky Wildcats have plenty of room for Hardy to come in and lead the offense but head coach John Calipari, who has an amazing history of sending players to the NBA, has struggled in the past couple of years with five-star perimeter players. The safest option for Hardy is the G League and of all players in the class, he’s the readiest to go and succeed there.