In just a month, Egor Demin will be an NBA Draft selection.
But where he winds up in the league has become an interesting mystery within draft discourse.
As previously reported by the Deseret News, Demin has been projected by experts to be drafted anywhere from inside the lottery to the end of the first round.
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His NBA Combine performance — particularly his shooting — proved strong, further thickening the plot and turning the BYU star into one of the year’s most intriguing prospects.
As for Demin, he believes he could wind up anywhere due to his willingness and ability to fill any role and do whatever a team asks of him.
“You know, having a chance to play the position of point guard since I started playing basketball, being there and just having this experience having the ball in my hands, being able to handle it, my advantage is that I can fit anywhere,” Demin told “The Ringer’s NBA Draft Show” podcast earlier this week. “One of my friends called me the ChatGPT of a player, just because I can be whatever. I think people are (using) the wrong kind of thinking that I’m a point guard. Like, no, I’m a playmaker.”
He continued, “I’m a playmaker, first of all, right? And I’m a ball handler. Looking at the NBA, tell me, who‘s the point guard in Boston? Nobody. You cannot tell who‘s playing point guard, you can tell only the center, right? You can only call out the big.
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“So I see myself anywhere. … Just being able to, you know, be on the ball, be off the ball, on the pick and roll, being a screener, cut, roll, pick and pop, stretch the floor, run, be a dunker, get in the low post, play from the low post. Whatever it takes for me to be helpful and impactful on the game.”
Here are some other highlights from Demin’s appearance on “The Ringer’s NBA Draft Show.”
On making the decision to play college basketball in the U.S. in order to prepare for the NBA
“I think we kind of got to the point of where it’s risky to go to the professional level after the youth level right away. … It was too big of a risk of not getting minutes, of not playing, of not being ready enough physically and mentally for this next kind of step, right?
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“College is kind of like the middle in between youth and professional (basketball). So this is how we saw it, just a little more smooth of a transition, and a closer transition to the NBA.”
Why he wanted to play in the Big 12 and for BYU
“I wanted to face challenges. I was ready to go there and feel the adversity sometimes. I was ready to fight back. This is how I wanted to grow.
“What Real Madrid taught me, you know, is that you’ve got to really sacrifice to gain. You’ve got to go through hard things to really get better, you’ve got to be uncomfortable. This is what I was looking for, and I got it in the Big 12.
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“Obviously with BYU, I had a significant role, and I’m super grateful to this program and to KY, Coach (Kevin) Young, for giving me this opportunity of just being who I was, and being able to get this experience of American basketball. Over and over again during the season, having fails, having success, whatever it is, it’s in the general picture and I got better.
“This is what I was looking for. I got what I was looking for.”
On how losing to Providence became a turning point in his season at BYU
“Obviously, the game against Providence, everybody started talking about us and not in a really positive way. But this was kind of the starting point for us to be better and for me to realize, ‘OK, now I see. So this is (better competition).’ It was probably the best thing in the past season for me.
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“As much as (losing) was frustrating, I knew that it’s good for me. Well, now I can say that. Obviously, that moment, I was not really thinking, ‘Oh good, we lost.’
“(After the Providence game) I was out for a month. So I needed to leave with that game for the next month before I could get back on the court and get this relief by winning. It was kind of getting me crazy a little bit. I was like a crazy man in the cage. … I was just craving to get back.”
On learning from his turnovers and trying to become more secure with the basketball
“I think the scouting from other teams was a huge thing for me to adjust to. I’ve never been really in the environment when people go towards my weaknesses, right? And that was where the turnovers were coming from.
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“I really needed to understand how the value of the basketball and the value of each possession, right? So for me, it was important to see the games and see the turnovers. I can get myself in a bad situation that leads to a turnover, but turnovers are not only the passes that you lost or whatever, not only when you lost the ball, turnovers can be when I get a bad shot. So Coach Young was telling us that a bad shot is a turnover, and that was a big part of our learning as a team and especially me.
“… We spent a lot of time watching film with (Young) himself, with the other coaches like Tim Fanning, watching film with players to really understand how can we make each other’s lives easier, because obviously … communication between players can prevent some of these turnovers.
“And this is where, you know, I’m really grateful to my teammates. They were really willing to help me. Playing with Trevin Knell, I would learn so much from him and from Richie (Saunders), obviously just because, you know, we were trying to build this chemistry and we really were trying to understand how to be better.”
BYU Cougars guard Egor Demin (3) pulls up for a shot while guarded by Wisconsin Badgers guard Max Klesmit (11) during a second-round college basketball game in the NCAA Tournament held at Ball Arena in Denver, Colo., on Saturday, March 22, 2025. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News
