NBA Offers Early Look

Decision day is here.

Today is the deadline for undergraduates with NBA stars in their eyes to declare for the draft. The early entry window shuts at midnight.

This is an emotional time for coaches and kids, a time for an honest evaluation, not always an easy assignment for those closest to the players involved.

Coaches? Honest?

There is the story of an old ACC coach who took recruits on a tour of the picturesque Duke campus because it was a lot prettier than his own school.

The draft is a lot like that. Caveat emptor.

For every hit, there is a miss. For every Kobe Bryant, wearing an NBA championship ring in what would have been his senior year in college, there is a Yinka Dare, wandering through the hinterlands of basketball, well removed from the league.

Both were early entry players. One belonged there. The other did not.

There is a solution. All the kids have to do is ask the league’s opinion.

Stu Jackson, who spends most of his time disciplining players when they step out of line, also chairs the NBA’s Undergraduate Advisory Committee, established to give players a handle on where they stand in the draft.

Jackson’s people are eager to help.

“We want to help kids make an informed decision,” Jackson said. “We’ll tell them if they’re likely to be a lottery pick, among the first 13, if they’re likely to go in the first round, the second round or not at all.”

Strangely, though, not all the underclassmen request the evaluation. Of the first 28 who filed this year, just 17 asked the committee’s opinion. Of that group, only one was advised he was likely to go in the lottery. Jackson’s not saying which one but the early entry list is oozing with talent.

All-American Troy Murphy of Notre Dame filed. So did Kentucky teammates Tayshaun Prince and Keith Bogans, who starred in the NCAA tournament. And four-fifths of Arizona’s starting lineup--Gilbert Arenas, Jason Gardner, Richard Jefferson and Michael Wright--took the plunge.

Bogans, Prince and Gardner were among a handful who did not hire an agent, meaning they can withdraw their names by June 20, a week before the draft, and still maintain their collegiate eligibility. By then, the pre-draft training camp in Chicago will be complete and they’ll have some feedback.

“There’s one coach who encourages his kids to file but to not hire an agent,” Jackson said. “He tells them to go to the camp in Chicago and then they can re-evaluate the situation after they get back.”

Murphy originally kept that option open and then changed his mind, hiring an agent and ending his days at South Bend.

This business of tiptoeing into the draft briefly and then pulling out seems to be a trend. In the last two seasons, 95 early entry players have declared but 31 of them withdrew. That compares with 23 withdrawals in the first four seasons that option was available.

The ones who seem most determined to stay are the high school candidates. Maybe that’s because they’re pretty confident they’ll be picked.

Just two of the 13 who filed since 1995 were not drafted. That’s a good sign for high school centers Tyson Chandler of Compton, Eddy Curry of South Holland, Ill., and De Sagana Diop of Senegal, all on this year’s early entry list.

Jackson’s committee, which includes longtime superscout Marty Blake, general managers Pete Babcock of Atlanta and Rich Sund of Detroit and assistant GM Keith Grant of Dallas, tries to be forthright in its evaluation.

“So many factors go into whether a kid succeeds,” he said.

When he was the general manager at Vancouver, Jackson picked two early entry players, Michael Bibby and Shareef Abdur-Rahim. Both worked out well.

And Dare, the early entry pick by New Jersey in 1994?

Jackson tried to be diplomatic. “Many times, kids with size, you base the pick on potential,” he said. “Sometimes that potential is unfulfilled.”

That’s how the Nets got that way.