Justin Lewis Will Attend The 2022 NBA Combine

If you were harboring some sort of weird need for Justin Lewis to stay at Marquette for another season, that took a major hit on Tuesday evening as The Athletic’s Shams Charania passed along the full list of participants in the 2022 NBA Draft Combine. As you should have been expecting, the sophomore forward is one of 76 young men who will be showing league scouts and general managers exactly what they’re capable of doing on the court.

Since the start of 2022, Lewis has been, largely speaking, included on whatever mock drafts or big boards that smarter people than me have been publishing. He’s been anywhere from late-ish in the first round of the NBA Draft to somewhere in the middle of the second round generally speaking, so it can’t be a surprise to anyone that NBA decision makers want a closer look at Lewis.

With the announcement that Lewis will be in the Combine, we are moving closer to a staying or going decision from him. It’ll have to be after the Combine, of course, but since Lewis has elected to maintain his collegiate eligibility, he’ll have about a week after the Combine ends to finalize his status for the draft. If the feedback he gets from the NBA people after the Combine doesn’t indicate that he’ll have a guarantee of some fashion, then we should hear pretty quickly after the Combine that he’ll be coming back to Marquette next season. However, if the league reps think this is the list of the top 76 prospects in a 60 player draft, then it stands to reason that most scouting departments see Lewis as a draftable player. Who knows what will officially happen, of course, but if I had to pick a direction, I’d guess that Lewis is staying in the draft.

Lewis had a monster sophomore season for Marquette after a fairly productive but injury hampered freshman campaign. He led MU in scoring and rebounding at 16.8 and 7.9 per game respectively and he chipped in 1.7 assists and 1.1 steals per game as well. He also shot 34.9% from long range, and that’s the kind of thing that NBA scouts like in their 6’7”, 245 pound players. I don’t know if Lewis shooting nearly 41% against Big East opponents falls into the category of good thing or bad thing for said NBA scouts, but it is a thing that happened.

MU’s star forward will be one of just four players from the Big East participating in the Combine. He’ll be joined by Julian Champagnie from St. John’s, Collin Gillespie from Villanova, and Aminu Mohammed from Georgetown.

Keep your eyes and ears open for information about what exactly the television situation for the Combine is/will be. I can’t track anything down right now, but I’m sure the league will be happy to let us know, and we’ll be happy to make sure that information ends up on this here internet website when we know for sure.