How Frank Martin is helping, and waiting, as 2 Gamecocks go through NBA draft process

Chris Silva worked out for the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday. He worked out for the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday.

Brian Bowen worked out for the Atlanta Hawks.

Frank Martin knows these things because, as he told reporters during a Wednesday news conference at Williams-Brice Stadium, he speaks to Silva and Bowen "every day."

For the second year in a row, the South Carolina basketball coach has two players going through the draft process. Silva, a rising senior, and Bowen, a freshman still waiting to be cleared by the NCAA, are in unique situations, but they share the option of returning to USC as neither has hired an agent.

Bowen has been invited and will participate in next week's NBA combine. Silva wasn't one of the 69 invitees, but, Martin said, that can change.

“The combine’s where you want to be at if being drafted is a realistic option," Martin said. "He’s worked his way into where people actually want him to work for them. Now he’s trying to utilize these workouts to create a mindset from general managers that he’s getting in front of to kind of push to get him in the combine.

"Obviously, right now there’s no spots available. But as you get closer to the combine, you have guys whose agents advise them ‘Don’t go, don’t do this, don’t do that.’ So it opens up slots."

Silva made first-team All-SEC last season and was the league's co-defensive player of the year. The 6-foot-9, 223-pound power forward is a likely SEC player of the year candidate, should he decide by the May 30 deadline to return to school.

“The way you get into the combine is if NBA general managers push for certain guys to get in there," Martin said. "It’s not Frank Martin, it’s not some guy that has a draft board for a website. It’s the actual general managers that demand what guys go to the combine. Hopefully, a door opens up for him.

“He’s in a great frame of mind. "

Bowen, the former McDonald's All-American Louisville recruit wrapped in the FBI's probe into college basketball, will head to Chicago next week. USC, as The State reported Monday, remains his No. 1 choice.

"If all options were equal, he’d be a Gamecock next year," Martin said. "But there’s an unknown right now."

"We’re going to get to the combine — because he is invited to the combine — and when the combine’s over, there’ll be a more informed opinion as to the NBA option. And then, probably sometime between the combine and the 30th, make a decision.

"Hopefully, the NCAA’s made a decision by then. We’re not trying to force the NCAA. We’re not trying to force them into a decision. We all know that whole dynamic of everything and we’re sensitive to that. "

Bowen, after working out for the Hawks on Wednesday, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution: “I would love to have a couple options, whether to go pro or back to school. I really don’t know the timeline. It kind of is (tough).”

This story was originally published May 9, 2018 at 12:50 PM with the headline "How Frank Martin is helping, and waiting, as 2 Gamecocks go through NBA draft process."