UCLA’s McCoy Has Some Growing Up to Do

Though a handful of his contemporaries have decided to take the shortcut to the NBA, Jelani McCoy never seriously considered leaving UCLA after his freshman year.

Now, after his sophomore season, that’s a whole other question.

“I know I’ve got one more good year out of him,” said his father, Fred McCoy.

McCoy, the 6-foot-10 center who dominated at times but also struggled last season, is a friend and contemporary of Kevin Garnett, who will be starting his second NBA season in 1996-97, and McCoy is a year ahead of Kobe Bryant and Jermaine O’Neal, high school players who have made themselves available for the draft.

But whenever the subject came up, McCoy told his father that this was not the time for him to make the leap.

“When we have real serious conversations, he’s leaning toward the fact that he knows he’s got some more growing up to do,” Fred McCoy said. “If you keep developing yourself, the money will never go away, and you’re more mature, wiser.

“The best thing I heard him say is when I teased him, ‘You sure you can handle the NBA?’ He said, ‘I know I can handle it, but I’m not through growing up yet.’

“I hope he’ll listen to some advice I’m giving him, his mother’s giving him, and then evaluate that in terms, ‘Is it necessary?’ In his case, it’s not necessary, financially.

“So, not this year. Maybe next year. . . . If he has a good year next year, then we will be wrestling with that question.”

UCLA assistant coach Steve Lavin said that, though Coach Jim Harrick and the rest of the staff would love to have McCoy play all four years, they recognize the possibility that he might not.

“He’s been very up front about it to this point that he wants to stay in school and he wants to continue and develop his skills, enjoy being a college student,” Lavin said. “We haven’t really had the big concern.

“At the end of next season, that’s another situation. But as of now, he really seems to be enjoying himself.”