The wild Kyle Filipowski ‘girlfriend’ saga, explained as best we can.

Kyle Filipowski, in particular, should have been a top-20 selection in the 2024 NBA Draft. this The NBA Draft. If you’re a 7-foot stretch four out of Duke who averaged 16 points and eight rebounds a game, you get selected early regardless of concerns about athleticism or shot creation, when most of the 2024 class is filled with Hail Mary picks and “what if” options.

Instead, we saw one of the most puzzling draft drop in recent memory. In the space of just 24 hours, Filipowski went from being a highly-touted early-teenager to falling out of the first round entirely; from showing up in the NBA Draft Green Room as a potential first-round draft pick, to then getting the unfortunate “treat” of waiting an entire night without his name being called, to not being selected (he ended up being selected in the second round on the second day of the draft, The Utah Jazz selected him 32nd overall.).

Clearly, the team was scared of something regarding Filipovski, but no one could have predicted how the furor would play out across the internet on Thursday.

The troubles of having an older girlfriend

The first reports that something was wrong at the Filipovski camp came on Thursday morning. ESPN draft analyst Jonathan Givony explained: The Low Post Podcast What we’re hearing from the team about the Duke big man.

“NBA teams have been talking about how his girlfriend was much older than him and they were questioning why he was estranged from his family because of this situation. It’s a very strange situation. Personally, I don’t understand why he fell in the second round.”

Just to set the record straight: Caitlin Hutchinson is referred to as Filipovsky’s “girlfriend.” However, the couple got engaged on April 18th. — I’m planning on getting married in August.

In terms of draft grades, Filipovski is 20 years old and Givony says his fiancé is 25. While the age difference is a bit unusual, it’s not a shocking revelation that would cause draft grades to plummet. many Many of the prospects who become estranged from their parents don’t suffer the same depression as Filipovskiy.

There was a missing piece to the puzzle, and the internet quickly began to try to figure out what was going on.

What we know about Caitlin Hutchinson

There’s very little concrete information about who the Alabama native Filipovski’s fiancée is, with most information being able to be gleaned from past social media posts that are still public at the time of writing.

It’s important to establish Hutchinson’s age here, as we will soon see. A Facebook post from December 23, 2018, notes that Hutchinson graduated from the University of Alabama.

Another Instagram post in which Hutchinson was tagged shows her in her high school graduation gown in May 2015.

It’s possible that she graduated high school or college early, but if she followed the standard path, she’d be 27 or 28 and six years since graduating college. Again, this isn’t really an issue; as we’ve said, it may be weird for a 20-year-old to date someone in their late 20s, but it’s not necessarily a huge red flag.

But this.

Prom Photos

As people combed through social media Thursday morning, they began seeing a photo of Filipowski and Hutchinson at their high school prom, showing the two together and dated May 21, 2022.

Filipovsky was born in November 2003; he was 17 when this photo was taken, and Hutchinson was (presumably) 25 or 26. Even if we assume that they first met at the prom, that’s an adult dating a minor. But in a now-deleted comment Hutchinson left on Filipovsky’s prom photo, she wrote, “A year spent with the love of my life.”

This means that they began their relationship when he was 16 and she was probably 24 or 25.

The Filipovski family’s opinion

A key element of the case was that relationship, as well as reports that Filipovsky had become estranged from her family over her relationship with Hutchinson.

Shortly after, people claiming to be Kyle’s brother, Daniel, and mother, Becky, took to Twitter to explain their side of the story and attempt to track down Jonathan Givony to tell his side of the story.

The Filipowski family’s story as a whole seems to allege that Caitlin Hutchinson had a relationship with Filipowski when they were in high school and attempted to educate him and convert him to Mormonism, including, they claim, a long-term plan to get engaged to him right out of Duke and into the NBA. This appears to have caused friction between Filipowski and his family, leading Kyle to choose his relationship with Caitlin over his family and, according to Givoney’s account of their tweets and the comments of NBA executives, to cut ties with them.

What can we make from all this?

If all of the above is to be believed, Filipovskiy may be considered a victim. Again, if the above facts are true, then an adult began dating a highly-touted and seemingly NBA-ready high school basketball player.

That same relationship later reportedly became too uncomfortable for Filipowski to talk about in interviews, scaring teams off and raising alarms about Hutchinson’s influence in his life, hurting his draft standing.

At this point, it doesn’t appear that anything illegal has happened. Filipowski is 20 and his fiancé is in his late 20s, so they can do what they want. But this story isn’t going away, and it may just be a matter of time before more information comes to light about the nature of the relationship and the damage it has done to the Filipowski family. At the very least, given the internet uproar this has caused, his draft rating has dropped, and he appears to have lost his first-round lottery status entirely, Filipowski will likely be questioned about the matter by NBA media, and that’s when we may hear his and Hutchinson’s side of the story.