Last night Jon Rothstein of CBSSports.com reported USC guard AJ Lawson will withdraw his name from the NBA Draft and return to school for his junior season. Rothstein cited sources for his information. Apparently, he did not confer with the Lawson family before tweeting his information. Lawson may enventually decide to return to USC. He has until August 3rd to withdraw from the draft. But his father said Tuesday afternoon no decision on his son’s future has been made.
Here is what Anthony Lawson had to say in response to Rothstein’s tweet:
“That information didn’t come from us and I’m upset somebody would put that out. I don’t know where he got his information from. It didn’t couldn’t come the Lawson family. There’s still a deadline. It’s still a waiting game. He’s bigger, more confident. All that stuff is still up in the air. We just want to see where we stand. If its not a good situation, we’ll be back, and if it’s a good situation, we’ll look closer at it. AJ will be turning 20 next month and last year he had his ups and downs and he had to grow. And he has grown and he has elevated his game to where it is very high. He’s holding his own weight now.”
Gamecock coach Frank Martin has said he is expecting Lawson to return to campus with the rest of his teammates June 29th Lawson’s return would mean the Gamecocks would have players who combined to average 60 points per game last season back in uniform.
Last season Lawson matched his scoring output of his freshman season at 13.4 points per game. His overall shooting percentage improved slightly from .411 to .414, but his three point shooting dropped off from .358 to .339. He did improve his foul shooting from 67% to 72%. His scoring did drop off to 12 points per game in SEC play, two points less than his freshman season.
Lawson had six games of 20 points or more last season. His season high was 28 points in a win over Cleveland State.
