On Wednesday, former Tennessee basketball star point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie was selected in the 2026 NBA Draft. After his lone year in Knoxville, Gillespie went 42nd overall in the second round of the draft to the reigning Western Conference champions, the San Antonio Spurs.
Now, Gillespie and the rest of the Spurs rookies have picked out their numbers. He will begin his career with No. 17. That number was most recently worn in San Antonio by Stanley Umude just last season.
At Tennessee, Gillespie wore No. 0 in his standout year. Prior to the Vols, he wore No. 0 at Maryland and No. 0 and 2 at Belmont. In high school at Greeneville, he wore No. 3 in basketball and No. 7 as a standout football player.
Welcome to the family rooks 🤍🖤 pic.twitter.com/CuRITxs5r2
— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) June 26, 2026
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Gillespie was a key cog in Tennessee’s offense during his only season with the Vols. He finished the year starting in all 37 games at point guard while averaging 18.4 points, 5.4 assists, 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 steals per game on 41% shooting from the field and 33.8% on threes. The team ultimately finished with a third-straight Elite Eight run in the NCAA Tournament.
Gillespie was one of three Tennessee players to hear their name called in the draft. Nate Ament went in the first round, while Felix Okpara went just behind Gillespie in the second.
“Well, it’s awesome. It really is,” Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes said. “And so proud of those guys. You go back to a year ago and look at the analytical side of what we do, those three guys put in more work than anybody in terms of the distance they ran, the reps they put in. And it’s always great when you see guys getting rewarded for their hard work. And obviously all of them meant so much to our program and had so much to do with our success. And we’re just proud of them. And again, I think they’re just getting started in what their journey through professional basketball. It was a fun couple days.”
Ament is joining the Bucks as the No. 13 overall pick. Okpara is joining the Wizards, who also had the No. 1 overall pick.
