NY Knicks: Is Quentin Grimes’ potential being overlooked?
By Adam Kester
NY Knicks: Quentin Grimes’ college career
Coming out of high school, Grimes was a big-time recruit. For the class of 2018, he was ranked as the #8 player in the country by both ESPN and Rivals.
He signed with the powerhouse Kansas Jayhawks, and his college career was off to a hot start when in his first game, he dropped 21 points against the Tom Izzo-coached Michigan State. The rest of the season was up-and-down — He had his moments but was inconsistent.
He ended up starting all 36 games for the Kansas Jayhawks, and as someone who was anticipated to be a one-and-done prospect, he went through the pre-draft process for the NBA. Grimes absorbed a ton of information from NBA teams. He was projected to go somewhere in the mid-2nd round, so Grimes withdrew his name from the process.
His decision to come back to Kansas turned out to be difficult. Jayhawks coach Bill Self had expected Grimes to go into the NBA Draft and had filled his scholarship with a new recruit, so Quentin Grimes had to enter the transfer portal. He transferred to the University of Houston.
Grimes spent 2 seasons at the University of Houston and improved his numbers both years — In his final season, he averaged 17.8 points per game for the Cougars and took on the lead role of the offense that he wasn’t able to accomplish at Kansas.
Grimes’ peculiar and somewhat uncommon trajectory in the NCAA leads to some questions about his ceiling and his overall game. Could there be some untapped potential that’s waiting to be unlocked in the league?