Johni Broome's subpar vertical jump at NBA Draft Combine draws jeers on social media
Unfortunately for Johni Broome, his name was a popular topic Wednesday because of a vertical jump that was less than impressive. The Auburn star recorded a standing vertical leap of 24.5 inches during testing drills.
By comparison, projected No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg notched a standing vertical jump of 35.5 inches. VJ Edgecombe, ranked fourth on Yahoo Sports' NBA Draft big board, topped that with a 38.5-inch jump.
Several detractors on social media also pointed out that Broome's standing vertical was less than massive Florida defensive tackle Desmond Watson, who weighs 464 pounds and jumped 25 inches at the NFL Combine. (Watson went undrafted and signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as a free agent.)
However, perhaps the meanest response came from, of all places, language learning platform Duolingo. The app's social media account quote-tweeted a video of Broome's vertical jump and wrote "Learn Chinese and try Super Duolingo today!"
Learn Chinese and try Super Duolingo today! https://t.co/KYD2aiEzg8
— Duolingo (@duolingo) May 14, 2025
Many NBA fans got the reference, which alluded to a popular meme that originated in 2022. A graphic circulating on social media features a fake quote from NBA commissioner Adam Silver saying, "Get ready to learn Chinese, buddy," as a warning to players whose behavior was a league issue or who were playing so badly they'd soon have to go overseas to play professional basketball.
Broome, 6-foot-10, is projected as a late second-round pick in Kevin O'Connor's mock draft for Yahoo Sports. He's also rated as the No. 45 player on O'Connor's big board.
Broome was one of the best players in college basketball last season and earned consideration for the Naismith National Player of the Year award that eventually went to Flagg. He averaged 18.6 points, 10.6 rebounds and 2.4 blocks, leading Auburn to a 32-6 record and a Final Four berth in the NCAA tournament.
However, Broome's athleticism was a concern for draft analysts and those vertical-leap numbers didn't change that perception. Between that and questions about his shooting skills (he shot 28% on 3-pointers last season), he will likely be selected in the draft's second round, if at all. As the Duolingo post joked, Broome could have an interesting basketball journey.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Sixers forward Paul George gives love to retiring star guard John Wall
The NBA world saw 5-time All-Star John Wall announce his retirement. The former star of the Washington Wizards played 11 years in the league--missing a season due to injury and another because he was too productive for the Houston Rockets in 2022--and averaged 18.7 points, 8.9 assists, and 4.2 rebounds in his career. Wall finished seventh in MVP voting in 2017 with the Wizards and played with Philadelphia 76ers star Paul George when the two of them were with the Los Angeles Clippers. When Wall was right, he was one of the best players in the league and was a player that elevated his teammates. George gave love to Wall via his podcast on Twitter as he acknowledged his former NBA draft and teammate with the Clippers. George will be looking to help the Sixers bounce back in the 2025-26 season. He played only 41 games in his first season in Philadelphia and will need to be healthy to help the Sixers get over the hump in the Eastern Conference. This article originally appeared on Sixers Wire: Sixers forward Paul George gives love to retiring star guard John Wall
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Nets' Nolan Traoré makes late change to jersey number before rookie year
Nolan Traoré is set to make the transition from France to the United States next season with the Brooklyn Nets, and the Frenchman will do so with a new jersey number. Traoré wore No. 2 last season with Saint-Quentin and No. 0 for three seasons with Centre Fédéral de Basket-ball. He also donned No. 30 and No. 0 while representing France, most recently in the FIBA EuroBasket 2025 Qualifiers in November. The 19th pick initially chose to wear No. 19 with the Nets, likely as a nod to his draft selection, but he recently decided to change it to No. 88, according to Etienne Catalan on X. He is set to become the first player in franchise history to wear it. Traoré was the Champions League Best Young Player last season after averaging 12.2 points, 4.7 assists and 1.9 rebounds on 41% shooting from the field in 44 appearances. He registered seven 20-point games, including a 25-point effort on May 9. The 19-year-old played three games with the Nets in the NBA Summer League, averaging 7.3 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.7 assists on 30.4% shooting from the field. He debuted with 13 points, three rebounds and three assists on July 10. Traoré is among a crowded draft class for the Nets, joining Egor Dёmin (eighth pick), Drake Powell (22nd pick), Ben Saraf (26th pick) and Danny Wolf (27th pick). The Nets became the first team in history to select five players in the first round of the draft. Note: Throughout August, Rookie Wire is looking at every first-round pick and why each player selected their respective jersey number as they make the jump to the NBA. Previous: Cooper Flagg | Dylan Harper | VJ Edgecombe | Kon Knueppel | Ace Bailey | Tre Johnson | Jeremiah Fears | Egor Dёmin | Collin Murray-Boyles | Khaman Maluach | Cedric Coward | Noa Essengue | Derik Queen | Carter Bryant | Thomas Sorber | Yang Hansen | Joan Beringer | Walter Clayton Jr. This article originally appeared on Rookie Wire: Nets news: Nolan Traoré makes jersey number change before rookie year
Yahoo
16 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Why Auburn is completely justified in claiming 4 more national titles
The Auburn Tigers just closed the gap on the University of Alabama in the national title debate, and they didn't have to take a single snap to do it. Claiming four new national titles in one swoop, in the year 2025, has to rank as Auburn's greatest victory since the Kick Six. Thing is, based on the precedent already set down by that school across the state, Auburn is completely justified in claiming most, if not necessarily all four of the new titles. What's good for the Tide is good for the Tigers, after all. 'For too long, Auburn has chosen a humble approach to our program's storied history — choosing to recognize only Associated Press national championships,' Auburn athletic director John Cohen told On3 in announcing the new title windfall. Two banners, for the 1957 and 2010 seasons, hang in Jordan-Hare Stadium, and prior to this week the Tigers also acknowledged the 1913, 1983 and 1993 seasons as meeting national championship qualifications. [Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2025 NFL season] Effective immediately, Auburn will now claim the 1910, 1914, 1958 and 2004 seasons as national championship ones, because, as Cohen notes, the Tigers' recognitions 'now align with the well-established standard used by the NCAA's official record book and our peers across the nation.' Auburn can justify the new rings on two fronts: first, because pre-21st-century college football was a chaotic nest of competing rankings and ad hoc justifications, and second, because Alabama already went there. Reason #1: Nobody knows anything The Tigers are taking advantage of 20th century college football's inherent absurdity. Then as now, the soul of college football lies in argument, the furious and fiery debate over unanswerable questions of strength and worth. But for all the good that the College Football Playoff and its predecessor postseason series have brought the game, they've robbed us of the debate of which team really would've come out on top in a winner-take-all matchup. When you determine your postseason rankings via polls rather than games, there's ample room for debate … and ample territory to claim championships on your own a century after the fact. Multiple contemporaneous and after-the-fact polls have attempted to make sense of college football's anything-goes era, some with far more statistical rigor and validity than others. Still, finding a poll that breaks your way is like finding a $100 bill on the ground; you might not be entitled to it, but you're going to keep it anyway. Auburn does have history in its corner. The Auburn of the 1910s was a fearsome unit, led by a diminutive Irishman named Mike Donahue and featuring players with spectacular names like Fatty Warren, Baby Taylor and Moon Ducote. In the three national championship seasons Auburn now claims, the Tigers won 22 games, lost one and tied one. Auburn and Alabama weren't playing at that time due to hard feelings on both sides, which was good news for the Tide, a mediocre 15-11 over the same stretch. The 1958 team played under a total blackout — no television, no bowl appearances — but still managed to go 9-0-1. That was only good enough for fourth in the final rankings, behind LSU (10-0), Iowa (7-1-1), and Army (8-0-1). The 2004 team went 13-0 but was not included in the two-team BCS, losing out on a berth by mere percentage points to USC and Oklahoma. Auburn and Oklahoma were tied going into the regular season's final week, but because Auburn didn't beat Alabama badly enough in the Iron Bowl, winning by 'only' eight points, Oklahoma moved ahead only to get shellacked by USC in the Orange Bowl. (Incidentally, I cover all this in my new — and apparently already dated — book Iron In The Blood: How the Alabama vs. Auburn Rivalry Shaped the Soul of the South, on sale next Tuesday. Feel free to correct the appropriate passages by hand.) Reason #2: Alabama did it first If you're mad at Auburn for claiming four new titles, you might want to reserve a good measure of your scorn for their rival. Back in the 1980s, an Alabama sports information director went diving in the record books and in one swoop, awarded Alabama five pre-Bear Bryant-era titles. These range from defensible and acceptable to absurd, like the 1941 season where Alabama went 9-2 and finished 20th (!) in the AP poll … but ranked No. 1, tied with Minnesota, in a single, much smaller poll. Nothing Auburn did Tuesday is anywhere near as egregious as that, and yet the 1941 team remains canonized on Alabama's Walk of Champions in front of Bryant-Denny Stadium. Now, granted, there's the question of an incredibly slippery slope here. If Auburn is going to claim a national title for 2004, why can't Utah — which also went undefeated at 12-0 — also claim one? Why couldn't 2017 Central Florida or 2023 Florida State, which, like 2004 Auburn, were both left out of the postseason dance despite going undefeated? For that matter, why can't Alabama claim the 1966 title and jump up to 19? That season, Alabama went 11-0 with six shutouts, but finished behind two teams — Notre Dame and Michigan State — that went 9-0-1 and played to a tie in late November. The suspicion, then and now, was that pollsters of the day were punishing the Crimson Tide for the state of Alabama's woeful record on civil rights in the turbulent 1960s. (Politics and sports have always intertwined.) Yes, Auburn's ring-grab could well set off a new wave of schools retroactively seeking to claim national titles won by their great-grandfathers. We could see new banners hanging in stadiums all across the country as enterprising researchers whip up dissertation-length justifications for why their school deserves titles from the days before cars or TV. But so what? We now have in place a means of determining, once and for all, a season's indisputable national champion. And as college football sins go, a bit of reapportioned valor ranks pretty low on the list. We've got to hold onto something to argue about, after all.
