Will Wade Loses Transfer Target Allen Graves To NBA Draft Withdrawal Deadline

By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor

One of the highest ranked Transfer Portal players LSU basketball coach Will Wade has been in contention for has decided to keep his name in the NBA Draft just as the May 27 deadline today was arriving with the draft on June 23.

Allen Graves (6-foot-9, 225 pounds), a redshirt freshman last season at Santa Clara who averaged 11.8 points and 6.5 rebounds and is from Ponchatoula, entered the portal on April 10 and had narrowed his college choices down to LSU and Duke. He also entered his name for the NBA Draft.

Graves then kept seeing all the mock drafts that have him going in the first round. ESPN’s latest draft predictions of May 19 had Graves going as the No. 22 pick of the 30-pick first round to Philadelphia. And on Tuesday – a day before Wednesday’s 11:59 p.m. deadline – Graves announced his decision.

“I will be going with staying in the draft,” Graves said on The Old Man And The Three podcast on Tuesday. “I have a great support system around me with my family, my wife, so just talking to them. My agents, they’ve been a big help. We’ve ultimately come to the decision to stay in the draft and super blessed to even have the option to be in this draft. It’s been an amazing journey.”

Will Wade Has 11 Players For LSU’s 2026-27 Basketball Roster, Or Will He?

Wade could have clearly used Graves, but he is nearing the completion of his roster for the 2026-27 season as he is at a possible 11 players – all new- at the moment, pending them getting eligible and/or signing for the season. Most of the 11 are commitments, not signees as of yet.

Graves, the No. 4 player in the portal and No. 2 power forward, signed with Santa Clara near San Francisco out of Ponchatoula High as an unranked forward before red-shirting in the 2024-25 season. He averaged 22.6 minutes a game last season and four starts in 35 games. He was named the West Coast Conference freshman and sixth man of the year along with making the All-WCC first team.

Wade had an in with Graves as his older brother Marshall Graves played for Wade the first time he was LSU’s coach from 2017-20.