Cortez Hankton Jr. makes good on preseason NFL Draft bet with Malik Nabers, Brian Thomas Jr.
Cortez Hankton Jr. will be making a trip to Detroit next week. He’ll be downtown on Thursday night to watch two of his players, Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr., be high selections in the 2024 NFL Draft with both being invited to the green room.
Hankton Jr. spoke about the upcoming event for the Tiger receivers during ‘Andy Staples On3’ on Friday. He said he’d be present at the draft and that the three of them would be ready to go as far as their fashion and fits for it.
“Oh, we’re ready,” Hankton Jr. said with a smile. “We ready. Malik and BT are both ready.”
However, while all three of them will be wearing separate suits, they will all be coming courtesy of Hankton Jr.. That comes after making a bet with Nabers before the season and, as such, has now brought Thomas Jr. in on it to give them their suits for draft night.
“Look, so, here’s the deal. It all started off last year before the season started. Let’s say, on The Tiger Walk, the boys dressed to impress. So, you know, I try to compete with them a little bit,” Hankton Jr. recalled. “Well, Malik? Basically, we make a deal. He says, ‘Coach, if I go first round, are you going to hook me up? Are you going to buy me a suit?’ Without a doubt, I said, ‘Man, look, you do that and we’re going to get it done.’ So he made it happen, had a big year.
“I made sure I held up to my end of the deal. In the midst of that, I said, ‘You know what, BT, since you joining the party? We’re going to go ahead and hook you up too,'” Hankton continued. “Shoutout to Johnny Mack, a tailor that’s been hooking me up for a while and has taken care of those guys.”
Nabers and Thomas Jr. were each, individually and as a duo, both incredible last fall for LSU. Nabers caught 89 passes for 1,569 yards and 14 scores. Meanwhile, Thomas Jr. posted 68 receptions for 1,177 yards and 17 touchdowns.
After the math, that’s 157 combined catches for 2,746 yards and 31 touchdowns. In other words, that translates within the Tiger offense to 54.9% of their catches, 62.3% of their receiving yards, and 70.5% of their receiving scores in 2023.
That’s why both are going to be among the top receivers off the board with Nabers likely to go somewhere in the Top-10 and Thomas expected to go somewhere in the first round or so.
As their position coach, Hankton Jr. did a lot of work to help this pair get to where they’re going to be. He now gets to help them to look their best too with them going for best dressed next week in The Motor City.
“Man, I’m looking forward to how good they’re going to look in their draft suits,” Hankton said. “We’re going to have some nice, some clean, tailored, Italian tapered-type fashion going on on draft day.”