The most interesting player in the 2024 NBA draft class

Enrique Freeman is 23 years old and having the time of his life, fresh off an outstanding showing at the NBA Draft Combine in Chicago. He was one of the five players who were called up to the combine from the G League Elite Camp.

At the combine he scored the most total points during scrimmages, intrigued teams with his strength, quickness and defensive instincts and then blew them away in interviews. He has pre-draft workouts set up with a number of NBA teams and is quickly rising up draft boards around the country.

So what’s this kid’s story? Well, five years ago, Enrique Freeman needed a job.

He had just started his collegiate career at the University of Akron, on a full academic scholarship, but he was used to having a bit more on his plate. He went to a work-study prep school, St. Martin de Porres High, which focuses students on preparing for work-life after school.

He’d worked at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while in high school, was student body president, and played on the best basketball team in St. Martin’s history. He liked staying busy.

Once he was at Akron, not only did he want spending money, but also just needed something to do. He signed up to become an intramural referee, which was great because on days when he wasn’t reffing games, he was allowed to play.

At that point, Freeman’s plan was to stay at school, get his master’s degree and then enter adulthood debt free and ready to work. Every once in a while he’d play a little extra basketball at the local rec center, where some of the local collegiate players would stop in, but none of them really knew who Freeman was and he didn’t plan on making a name for himself in basketball.

“In high school we had the best record in St. Martin’s history, but the school was more about the work-study program,” Freeman said. “I went to Geneva College, a D-III school, on like a recruiting day. I watched their game, met briefly with the coach and then they never called me. So that was it. No one else called.”

Akron’s basketball team holds open tryouts to the student body every year for their walk-on spots, and despite his mother, friends and siblings telling him he should try out, Freeman didn’t. He was 6-foot-4, skinny, lacked muscle, and when he saw the rest of the guys on the team he felt like he didn’t measure up.

‘I made the team’

A year later, Tania Torre, a Cleveland police officer and Freeman’s mother, was at work when her son called.

“I remember like it was yesterday,” Torre said. “I was at work and I’m at the copy machine and I get a phone call. He’s like, ‘Mom I have something to tell you, you’re not gonna believe this.’ I’m like, ‘Oh, no. What’s going on? Are you OK?’ And he says, ‘Yeah, I made the team.’ At first I was like, what team? Because he didn’t tell us he was trying out. But when he said it was Akron, I started crying like a baby.”

Over the course of the year, Freeman had sprouted up to 6-foot-8 and he missed basketball. He loved playing and loved competing and though open gyms and intramural games were fine, he missed playing at a high level. He didn’t want to tell anyone he was thinking about trying out because if he didn’t make the team, he didn’t want anyone to be disappointed, but also, he wanted it to all be on his terms. He wanted it to be his journey.

When Akron head coach Jim Groce showed up to the gym on the day open tryouts were underway he immediately noticed Freeman.

“I walked in that fall of 2019 with a cup of coffee like I do every year when we do this and I’m like, ‘Who is this guy?’” Groce said. “No one on my staff knew who he was. You don’t see many 6-7, 6-8 guys with a 7-2 wingspan walk in for a general student body tryout, not know anything about them. Of course, at that point he was maybe 180 (pounds) dripping wet.”

Freeman wowed during tryouts. He was tall, long, fast, joyful, communicative, smart and couldn’t be slowed down despite not having a ton of strength. The coaching staff quickly got to work trying to find out more.

Sure, he seemed like a great athlete, but what kind of student is he? Academic scholarship, model student, professors love him. OK, well what about high school? His high school coach said he was coachable, friendly, hard working, an overachiever with a great support system.

“It all came back with flying colors,” Groce said. “So we thought, well, worst-case scenario we’ll put him on the scout team. He can help us in that regard and we’ll see where it goes. Well, he kept getting better at such a rapid rate that by his second year with us it was pretty evident he was going to play a major part in our rotation.

“I brought him off the bench in the first game that year and he got 21 rebounds in that game. He’s started every game since and the rest is kind of history.”

By the end of the 2021-22 season, Freeman led the NCAA in field goal percentage, averaged a double-double, was named Mid-American Conference Defensive Player of the Year, led the Akron Zips to a MAC tournament title and was named the tournament MVP.

Last year, some NBA teams started calling. He went through a handful of pre-draft workouts but ultimately decided to withdraw from the draft and go back to Akron for a final season.

“I don’t think I had the confidence and the belief two years ago that the NBA was realistic,” Freeman said. “But after we won and after we played against teams like UCLA, it was like, well, I can play with these guys. It boosted my belief and my confidence in myself. Then NBA teams had me in for workouts and having those workouts were huge for me because not only did it help with my game, but they helped me assess my game. That’s when I really started believing that I can make it in the NBA.”

‘Can you help me?’

At Akron, Freeman played a lot with his back to the basket during the first couple of years. He was a more traditional forward or center who was posting up and playing off the glass. But if he was going to make things work at the NBA level he was going to have to expand his game.

In workouts with NBA teams last year, it was made clear that he needed to gain strength, prove that he could shoot the ball, and extend his defense to the perimeter. Freeman went to Groce.

“The NBA teams need to see X,Y and Z, these are the things I need to be putting in my workout,” Freeman said. “So I talked to Coach. I was like, ‘Hey, I don’t want to be that guy who says it’s all about me, but can we put some of this stuff in? Can you help me? And thank God he said yes.”

Expanding Freeman’s game and adding new things to the team’s workout were not things that were going to negatively affect winning or the team culture, and Groce wanted to help as much as he could.

That meant a lot harder workouts, not just for Freeman, but for the rest of the team. The Zips were going through longer, more intense workouts in the spring, which was usually a time when things were pretty low key.

“Spring workouts are normally really relaxed but because I was going to be working out with some NBA teams coach had us doing conditioning and all this other stuff,” Freeman said with a laugh. “The guys on the team were like, ‘Rique, we love you, but not this much.’ I was so grateful though, and then not only did it help me but it helped those guys as well because they’ve seen my grind and they see that it’s paying off, so they started believing in themselves.”

When Freeman showed up in Chicago last week, the scouts who had been familiar with him from the previous year were surprised to see how much weight he’d put on. He weighed in at 212 pounds and was faster and more explosive than they remembered. He was also comfortable roaming the perimeter, shooting 3s and working like more of a small forward.

Then he got called up to the combine from the G League Elite Camp. In his first scrimmage he scored a game-high 17 points and a number of executives started asking questions. Who is this kid from Akron?

‘My only concern is that he won’t be there when we make our pick’

Freeman has already interviewed with a number of NBA teams, including the Minnesota Timberwolves, Indiana Pacers, San Antonio Spurs, Los Angeles Clippers, Toronto Raptors, Golden State Warriors, Detroit Pistons and Utah Jazz. He has at least a dozen teams interested in booking him for a pre-draft workout and his draft stock continues to rise.

“He is without a doubt the ideal candidate for a two-way contract,” an NBA scout said. “But I wouldn’t be shocked if he gets picked and gets a standard deal. He plays with so much joy and so much determination. His defense alone should earn him an extra look.”

Prior to the combine, many would have predicted Freeman going undrafted. By the end of the first couple days of the combine he was considered to be a late second-round pick. Now, a number of executives are wondering if he’ll be available when they are picking earlier in the second round.

“The rate at which he is improving is really incredible,” a Western Conference executive told the Deseret News. “I don’t really have any concerns about him. My only concern is that he won’t be there when we make our pick.”

Freeman is someone who pulls in scouts and NBA decision-makers with his game on the court and then seals the deal with his personality. His smile and his laugh are infectious. He loves his family, he loves working hard and he cares about everyone around him.

Even after he was a major part of the Akron basketball team, he added more to his plate. This last semester he finished his MBA and was also a representative of Akron’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee as well as the MAC Council of Student Athletes, which gave him a chance to advocate for other athletes.

“I knew my position of power at Akron,” Freeman said. “I was able to advocate for smaller teams who don’t get as much attention as the men’s basketball team. And they deserve attention. They deserve to be treated with the same respect and they deserve to have a great experience at Akron. I loved it and honestly they helped me as much as I helped them.”

In the last five years, Freeman has achieved everything that he set out to do during his college career, and more. He has gone from being an intramural ref to being a fast-rising NBA draft prospect who is without a doubt the most interesting and intriguing person in the 2024 draft class.

If he’s come this far in five years, there’s no telling what he’ll be able to do over the next five.