July 8, 2016
First-year University of Nevada men's basketball assistant coach Ronald Dupree completed the Wolf Pack circle when Ben Simmons was the first selection of the Philadelphia 76ers in the recently completed 2016 NBA draft. All three of the Pack's first-year assistants now have a link to a first pick in the NBA draft.
Yanni Hufnagel was the first of the Pack assistant coaches to work with the No. 1 selection. While at Oklahoma he worked with Blake Griffin who was selected first overall by the Los Angeles Clippers in 2009. Hufnagel worked with four players that were selected in the 2016 draft. In his time at Cal he coached Jaylen Brown and Tyrone Wallace. Brown was selected third by Boston and Wallace 60th by Utah. He worked with Wade Baldwin IV and Damian Jones at Vanderbilt. Baldwin was the 17th selection by Memphis and Jones was taken by Golden State with the 30th pick. Three of the four players were first-round selections.
Pack assistant Dave Rice coached Anthony Bennett when he led the UNLV program. Bennett was selected No. 1 overall by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2013 NBA Draft. Two of Rice's former players Patrick McCaw and Stephen Zimmerman were second round selections in the 2016 NBA Draft. McCaw was selected with the 38th pick by Milwaukee and Orlando chose Zimmerman with the 41st selection.
Dupree worked with Simmons at LSU this past season. He was a consensus first-team All-American and the USBWA National Freshman of the Year. The Melbourne, Australia native averaged a double-double in his only year at Baton Rouge, averaging 19.2 points and 11.8 rebounds per game.
