Ja'Kobi Gillespie went 42nd overall to the San Antonio Spurs on June 24, ending his college run with a second-round call in the 2026 NBA Draft. The Tennessee guard now moves into the NBA after a final season that put him in the middle of almost everything Tennessee created on offense.
Tennessee's draft payoff
He played all 37 games and averaged 34.8 minutes per game, then finished with All-SEC First Team honors. Those minutes came with production: 18.4 points, 5.4 assists and 2.1 steals per game, plus 16 games with 20 or more points.
Gillespie also gave Tennessee a late-season scoring punch that carried into the NCAA Tournament. He averaged 21.8 points there, scored 29 points and hit six 3s against Miami (Ohio), and later posted 34 points against Texas.
Rick Barnes and the midrange push
Rick Barnes kept pressing him to improve his midrange game, even as Gillespie’s role expanded. That is the hard part of the scouting report: he was productive enough to get drafted, but the next level will ask for cleaner shot selection and more ways to score when the 3-point look is not there.
At Tennessee, he shot 33.8% from 3-point range on 8.2 attempts per game and 41% from the field. He also finished third in the SEC in steals per game, a number that fit the way he handled the ball and chased passing lanes for a team built around pace and pressure.
Knoxville area company
The pick also put Gillespie alongside Elston Turner, Doug Roth and Paul Hogue as the only Knoxville area players drafted into the NBA. Nate Ament had already gone No. 13 to the Milwaukee Bucks on the first night of the 2026 NBA Draft, and Felix Okpara was still on the board when Gillespie came off it.
For Gillespie, the path reached this point after two seasons at Belmont, a junior year at Maryland and one final season at Tennessee. He left as a Greeneville native who had already led Greeneville to its first pair of TSSAA state championships in 2021 and 2022, then turned a heavy-usage Tennessee season into a draft slot in the second round.
