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Shawn Taggart battles for a loose ball

Most Memphis Tigers basketball fans are waiting to see if star player Shawn Taggart will be returning to the team next season. With Coach Josh Pastner’s recent 2009 recruiting class signings, the team will be good next season…if Taggart returns for one more year, then the Tigers will likely be the clear-cut favorites to repeat as Conference USA champions again as well has have a shot at making a good showing in the 2010 NCAA tournament. If Taggart does decide to go the professional route, Memphis is still going to make a good showing, but there will be more of an onus on the new recruits to be ‘go-to’ players earlier in the season.

Memphis Basketball – Shawn Taggart’s Collegiate Career Summary

The 2008-09 season saw Shawn Taggart step out into the starting role for the first time in his career. He started 27 games last season while averaging 10.4 points a game and pulled down 7.6 boards per contest. He was the Tigers’ top rebounder and free throw shooter and the third leading scorer on the team. In the 2007-08 season he started 9 games and averaged 5.9 points per game, 4.2 rebounds, and was third on the team with 37 blocked shots. Prior to that, Taggart had to sit out the 2006-07 season after transferring from Iowa State and had to sit out from practice while recovering from ACL surgery. Although he recently graduated, Taggart has two more years of NCAA eligibility remaining.

 Why Shawn Taggart Should Come Back for One More Year

 The conventional wisdom for Taggart is that he should come back for one more season of college basketball to continue to work on his overall skillset before making the jump to the NBA. At this point, most 2009 NBA mock drafts do not list him as being drafted, or if they do in the later portions of the 2^nd round. At 6′10″ he brings good size, but still needs to work a bit on ball handling and post moves to give himself a better position in the draft.

Why Shawn Taggart May Stay in the 2009 NBA Draft

Despite the fact that he might not be drafted, we may still see Shawn Taggart remain in the 2009 draft. This is for a few reasons: 1 – This year’s draft is pretty weak on the numbers of big men. Next year’s draft is going to be a lot deeper for post players and Taggart could find himself further behind the competition. Even if he doesn’t go in the second round, Shawn can likely sign for more money this year as an unrestricted free agent than next when the lineup of bigs is going to be much longer, 2 – He might know something that we don’t regarding the potential NCAA rules violations for Memphis. Would he come back to play for a team that suffers penalties for the D Rose drama?, 3 – He’s getting old (for an NBA rookie). Taggert is 24, teams may not want his services as much if he’s going up for the draft at 25, etc….

So, its going to be a tough choice for Taggart I think. If he has a shot at being drafted, his smartest decision may be to remain in the draft since he already has a college degree. Regardless, we’ll all know by June 15^th!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 4th, 2009 at 1:37 pm and is filed under 2009 NBA Draft, Memphis Tigers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.