Pushing the limit

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Jun 19, 2005 | by Tim Buckley Deseret Morning News

A mature physique is needed, but often not-yet owned.

"Your body," O'Connor said, "has to be able to take a beating a little bit."

"There are demands in our league that have to do with 171 days and 82 games," Stern added. "It's tough and stressful and some players react to it better than others."

Off-court matters can be even-more taxing.

Seattle prepster Webster has been so warned by the likes of his cousin, Jason Terry of the Dallas Mavericks, and his friend, Sonics star Rashard Lewis, who himself went right to the NBA from high school in 1998.

"They said the hardest transition would be living on your own, especially managing your money," Webster said.

For his soon-to-come millions, the 18-year-old already has financial advisors. For the transition out of his boyhood bedroom, there is family help -- a relative who plans to live with him during his rookie NBA season.

"Uncle Clifford's coming with me," Webster said.

The temptation

The search for basketball's next LeBron, next Kobe, next Kevin Garnett has drastically altered the draft's composition.

When Garnett was taken No. 5 overall in 1995, he was the only high school first-rounder. When Bryant went No. 13 in '96, he and No. 17 Jermaine O'Neal were the only two.

In three of the last four years, a high school player has gone No. 1 overall: Brown to Washington in 2001, James two years later and Orlando's Dwight Howard last year.

Last year, a whopping eight of the first 19 picks came from high schools or prep academies in Georgia, Illinois, California, New York, Mississippi, Virginia, New Jersey and Connecticut.

A lottery pick these days, in other words, isn't always what it once was.

"You would expect that with that pick, 10 years ago or 15 years ago, that you'd get a three-year or a four-year proven product," O'Connor said. "You're not doing that today.

"So I guess 'patience' is the word. When you need help, you need to have patience with the help."

Complicating matters, though, is the fact that teams needing the most help, more often than not, are the ones taking the high school kids so high -- and they can least-afford to wait.

"You're taking a team that needs help with the draft," O'Connor said, "and you're putting a player on there that a lot of times needs maturation, and needs to be able to improve, to be able to get to a point where they can help the team."

Bad mix.

"That being said," O'Connor said, "Dwight Howard certainly was an exception -- and so was LeBron James."

And that only tempts some teams more.

"It's not good for our game," Stern said.

Added Miller: "We're . . . destroying our own farm system."

The D-League solution

The biggest mistake from the high school crew might be made by those who expect they'll be selected in the draft's first round, and are not.

Those who fall to the second round, like Lewis in '98, miss out on an immediately automatically guaranteed contract.

Some, like Lewis, overcome the setback. Others do not. And a few more never get the chance to find out if they could.

"You see guys," Florida's Lee said, "that have come out and not even gotten drafted, then are really stuck in a position where they have no education and no NBA to play in."