So here's a story for you:
At 9:25pm on April 16, 2017, The Vertical's Shams Charania sent out the following tweet:
Sources on @TheVertical: Oregon junior Jordan Bell entering the NBA draft, signing with agent. https://t.co/9QeceLS1ES— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) April 17, 2017
This angered Jordan Bell, who soon thereafter tweeted twice:
Haven't made a decision yet #fakenews https://t.co/lnpTLch8Kq— Jordan Bell (@1jordanbell) April 17, 2017
Sports
I never spoke @ShamsCharania nor has anybody else in my circle so I guess it's a game of he said she said or as he called it "sources"— Jordan Bell (@1jordanbell) April 17, 2017
So what actually went down? It turns out that former agent Christian Dawkins -- who is a key figure in the FBI's investigation into corruption in college basketball -- may have been responsible.
Bell explained everything to Logan Murdock on the Planet Dubs Podcast.
"I was mad ... I know exactly what happened. One of the agents I met with -- the one who got in trouble. What's his name? Dawkins or whatever. Something like that. When I met with him, he was throwing me shade -- he acted like he didn't know who I was.
"We had dinner and he's on his phone like not really paying me attention. I'm like, 'Why am I meeting with you? You're wasting my time.' ... I kid you not, he didn't read over his (research). It had all of the top power forwards, big guys in the draft. And he was like, 'Let's just look at this.'
"And he's looking at it, and he was like, 'Oh! You're Top 3 in everything!' And he started getting excited and I was like, 'I'm cool. I'm done with this meeting.'"
Bell then explained how one of his coaches at Oregon tried to teach Bell a lesson.
The coach wanted Bell to "be a man" and contact all of the agents that he was for sure not going to sign with to let them know.
Bell didn't want to do that because he wanted to announce he was declaring for the draft on his own terms, without any information potentially leaking to the media.
But the Warriors rookie took the coach's advice and texted Dawkins to say he was going in a different direction.
"And I kid you not, like an hour later, I get an (alert) -- I'm upstairs at my coach's house -- 'I hear Jordan Bell declares for (the draft)' and I just started screaming...
"... I feel like I have to go (to the NBA) now ... when that happened, I was like, 'I really want to go back now just to prove him wrong, just to make him lose all credibility."
Bell quickly came to his senses, and at 10am on April 18, 2017, he retweeted the following message:
We are proud to announce Jordan Bell has decided to enter the NBA Draft! Read more about his decision here: https://t.co/Uny1a4L9K5 pic.twitter.com/biJkwSieZY— Rise Long Beach (@RiseLBC) April 18, 2017
Interestingly -- the last line of The Vertical's story that broke the news regarding Bell reads:
Bell is projected to be the No. 38 overall pick in The Vertical's latest mock draft by Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.
The Warriors paid the Bulls $3.5 million for the rights to Bell at... No. 38 overall.
Drew Shiller is the co-host of Warriors Outsiders. Follow him on Twitter @DrewShiller
