St. Paul native Freddie Gillespie training hard for October’s NBA Draft

There is no vacation time for St. Paul native and former Baylor big man Freddie Gillespie. Back in the Twin Cities from Miami recently, his home base for pre-draft training, we found him right back in the gym working hard.

NBA mock drafts list Gillespie as a potential second round pick. He played in high school at East Ridge.

Gillespie told KSTP that he has virtually interviewed with over half the NBA teams, including the hometown Timberwolves. There’s some chatter of his agent being able to send NBA teams workout video so they can evaluate how he looks with all this downtime.

***Click the video box above to watch our Q&A with Gillespie, and to see him in action***

Gillespie, a 6-foot-9 forward, averaged 9.6 points, nine rebounds, 2.2 blocks and 1.1 steals last season season for Baylor, which helped him earn second-team All-Big 12 honors. The Bears were poised to be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, something he had a lot to do with.

Gillespie started his college career at Carleton in the MIAC, a D-III program. He caught the eye of Baylor ass’t and Twin Cities native Jared Nuness, and the rest is history.

Minnesota natives Zeke Nnaji, Tre Jones, Daniel Oturu, and Tyrell Terry are also draft-eligible. In other words, the state of Minnesota will be heavily represented on October 16, the day of the NBA Draft.