The text message surprised me when it first hit my phone early Tuesday night.
“Joshua Jefferson is here,” Register reporter Tyler Tachman wrote me from the NBA Draft in Brooklyn. “Sitting in the crowd.”
The former Iowa State basketball star, by conventional wisdom, shouldn’t have been there. He didn’t get a green room invite, which goes out to lottery picks and nearly-assured first-rounders. Jefferson was, in fact, no guarantee to be drafted Tuesday. Some projected he might, others that he wouldn’t, but the consensus certainly was that he could be left waiting until the second round.
When that’s the case, draft prospects usually stay at home. There, there’s no risk of getting all dressed up and getting stood up for the dance. No public apprehension. No looks of pity if you’re not called.
But there Jefferson was, his 6-foot-9, 245-pound frame adorned in a sharp-looking maroon suit complemented with a black shirt and tie, in the wings of the Barclays Center to hear NBA commissioner Adam Silver deliver a line that will stay with Jefferson forever.
“With the 28th pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, the Minnesota Timberwolves select Joshua Jefferson from Iowa State University.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised – neither that Jefferson was selected nor that he was there to celebrate and savor the moment.
All the guy has been doing his entire career is betting on himself – to great success.
“I always,” Jefferson told me last month at the NBA Draft combine, “believed in myself.”
It’s not just seeing that belief get rewarded that’s so cool to see, but knowing the work that belief fueled to get Jefferson to this moment is what truly paid off.
From recruiting afterthought to role player at St. Mary’s to Iowa State All-American, Jefferson’s talent, basketball IQ and attention to detail allowed him to blossom as he just continued to put in the work. Never bombastic. Never self-aggrandizing. Never anything but himself all the time.
Now, that self is a first-round NBA Draft pick and an NBA player.
The journey was never easy for Jefferson, even at its latest stages.
Not only did the ankle injury he suffered in the first minutes of the first round of the NCAA Tournament deprive him of one final triumphant collegiate run, but it also threw his draft future into uncertainty.
“When that injury happened, I feel like a lot of things was jeopardized from that,” Jefferson told reporters in Brooklyn after being selected. “Going into pre-draft, I was like, ‘Make the most out of your workouts and attack your rehab hard and everything will go how it needs to go.’”
Jefferson, who was part of a draft-night trade that will make him a Brooklyn Net, did exactly that, and it got him exactly where he wanted to.
Not just hearing his name on draft night through the TV set in his family room. But hearing it, seeing it and experiencing it in person. Shaking Silver’s hand and wearing that draft night hat that will surely become a Jefferson Family heirloom.
It was a moment truly, fully earned, and it should come as no surprise.
Iowa State columnist Travis Hines has covered the Cyclones for the Des Moines Register and Ames Tribune since 2012. Contact him at thines@amestrib.com or (515) 284-8000. Follow him on X at @TravisHines21.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa State basketball’s Joshua Jefferson bets on himself again | Hines
Reporting by Travis Hines, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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By Travis Hines, Des Moines Register | USA TODAY Network
