If Kevin Love leaves UCLA, it’ll be no surprise

With all due respect to Kevin Love’s family, who did a great job raising him, the notion that they’re shocked – shocked! – at our Diane Pucin’s report that their baby boy is going pro is standard, according to the protocol by which top collegians enter the NBA draft, almost invariably at the earliest opportunity.

1. Arrive on campus. Say you’re a (choose one: Bruin, Trojan, Buckeye, Longhorn, et al) and that’s all you’re concerned with.

2. Play the season. This takes months but is mandatory since pro teams want to know if you’re actually any good.

3. After the season, announce you haven’t given the NBA any thought and must consider your options.

4. Interview agents, all of whom promise you’ll go as one of the NBA’s lottery draft picks. See which agents looksincere and who’s so slick, he has to hold on to the end table to keep from sliding off your couch.

5. Hold a press conference to make the dramatic announcement … you’re going pro!

With all due respect to Kevin, whose personality is right there with his extraordinary sense for the game, he was headed for the 2008 draft a long time before he got to UCLA.

A year ago in the first test of the new 19-year-old age rule for NBA picks, thereafter to be known as the One-and-Done Rule, Ohio Sate’s Greg Oden completed steps 1-5 while Coach Thad Matta continued to hold out hope he’d return.

Apparently, Matta and Oden were in parallel universes. In Oden’s, turning pro was a foregone conclusion for weeks, since Michael Conley Sr. – the father of teammate Mike Conley Jr. and an Oden advisor for years – announced he was going into the agent business.

Texas’ Kevin Durant was the one who actually intended to return to school – until Nike sent the word it was willing to give him a $40-million deal.

At that point Love, a friend of Durant, said he advised him, “The only thing you can do is go down [in draft status] or get hurt, so you might as well go.”

It didn’t take Freudian analysis to suspect Love’s advice would apply in his own case.

As if to confirm the obvious, his father, Stan, made several comments that further suggested they already knew what they wanted to do, like saying of the current system, “You’re forced out if you’re any good.”

Oh, and designating a family friend to screen agents might have been another clue.

Even if Kevin is a tweener at the next level and plays under the rim, his off-the-chart skill level makes him one of the most peculiar prospects the NBA has ever had to evaluate, a process that will intensify in workouts.

NBA people are used to writing off earth-bound power forwards who measure out 6-8 in their stocking feet.

Love, however, is different. Most draft sites had him as a mid-to-high teens pick during the season, but every NBA guy I’ve talked to in the last month had moved him into the lottery with many giving him a shot at the top 10.

One way or another, I think we’ll find out soon. Where Love goes in the draft, I mean – not when.

In the case of Love’s UCLA teammate Darren Collison’s case, the general notion is he’s still on the first round, probably between picks 18 to 30. Getting run over by NBA-size-plus Derrick Rose didn’t help Collison but the next two top-rated point guards, Ty Lawson and D.J. Augustin, are small, too.

(O.J. Mayo, Jerryd Bayless and Eric Gordon are considered combo guards who can play either position but whose ability to run the point full-time is still in question.)

Rose ran over Augustin, too, and Lawson got swallowed up by Kansas, so none climbed at the expense of the other two.

If anything, Augustin, the highest-rated, probably dropped down to the other two.

There always seems to be one mad hype before the draft. Last season it was Kansas’ Julian Wright, who was supposed to be in the top four ahead of players like Yi Jianlian, Brandan Wright and Joakim Noah.

Wright wound up going No. 12 to New Orleans, which was more like it, although I think if the Hornets did it over, they would take Al Thornton.

This season the mad hype is Russell Westbrook. ESPN’s Chad Ford has him at No. 10 and NBADraft.net at No. 9, based on old news from November when Westbrook looked great at the point with Collison out.

After that, Westbrook moved to shooting guard and became a role player, if an exciting one, but struggled with his shot, making 28% of his threes in conference play (after having made 41% as a freshman).

Even with his 22-point game against Memphis, I haven’t talked to an NBA person in three weeks who thinks Westbrook is still in the lottery.

“Personally, I’d say he’s in the 20s,” a GM said today. “I know a lot of people like him, but I don’t see it.”

Westbrook does, indeed, have a shot at a top 10 pick – next year’s. In the meantime, buy an insurance policy, stay in school and play a full season at the point.

mark.heisler@latimes.com