If there's an NBA job for Jok, he's gotta go

CHICAGO — I wouldn't blame Iowa junior guard Peter Jok a bit if he decided to turn pro in May. Hey, maybe he should.

Whether Jok is an NBA player or not, I have no idea. I haven't seen him on a single NBA mock draft from websites and other entities that deal in such things. But who knows? If he plays like a madman at the NBA combine here in Chicago in May, what the heck.

But here's what occurred to me yet again while watching the New York Knicks-Chicago Bulls game here Wednesday night: The world is full of great basketball players.

Knicks rookie forward Kristaps Porzingis had 29 points Wednesday, scoring inside and out.

Second-year player Nikola Mirotic of Montenegro scored a career-high 35 off the bench for the Bulls, the only bright spot in their 115-107 loss. Mirotic tied a Chicago single-game record with nine 3-pointers.

Pau Gasol of the Bulls and Sasha Vujacic and Jose Calderon of the Knicks came from foreign shores to make a nice living here. They, with Porzingis, were 40 percent of the starters in their game.

There are only 30 NBA teams, 30 first-round picks a year. Some of the names projected for the first round in June's draft are names you and I have never before heard. Drajan Bender of Croatia is very high on most lists, higher than Buddy Hield of Oklahoma and Denzel Valentine of Michigan State.

Several other foreigners are projected to go in the first round, as several do every year. Only first-round money is guaranteed. Only 30 people get that guaranteed cash each year.

If the pro people tell Jok he has as much as a chance to be one of the 30, he's got to take it. Got to. It may not be there next year. Especially since Jok will be 23 on March 30, 2017. The NBA isn't too keen on 23-year-old rookies.

Three of the first four players on the 2016 DraftExpress mock draft are college freshmen. The other is 18-year-old, 7-foot-1 Bender. Hield and Valentine are two of just three seniors among the 30.

The same site has a 2017 mock draft. Granted, that's pretty worthless right now. But, its top five players are four current American high school seniors and a 17-year-old Belgian, and it's a fair bet the top five players in the '17 draft will be teens.

A week from his 22nd birthday, Jok's got to look long and hard at what we wants to do if he is to get paid playing ball.

Also, there is a chance he has simply had enough of college ball, maybe had enough of playing at Iowa. While he would be the focal point of the Hawkeyes next season, that has bad to go with the good. 'Stop Jok' would be the name of every opposing coach's defensive game plan next winter.

It will be harder for Jok to go on one of his patented scoring sprees when there is no Jarrod Uthoff for foes to worry about.

Never in the last few decades have we seen two players on the same Iowa team who could go off the way Uthoff and Jok did in the season that just ended for them.

It's great that Jok doesn't have to commit to turning pro until he's gone through workouts and interviews at the NBA combine. If they tell him his only shot at pro ball is overseas or the NBA Development League, he can come back to Iowa and not skip a beat.

Or he can leave anyway.