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American Morning
NBA Draft Peppered With Kids
Aired June 27, 2001 - 10:48 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LAURA OKMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Can you feel the draft? The door is open and let's go you, guys and it's actually going to be a crazy one. They went to bed last night as stars of their respective colleges and high schools. They'll wake up tomorrow morning as the NBA's newest millionaires.
With a record number of youngsters and international in tonight's NBA draft, it promises to be the most unpredictable one ever. But this year's draft also comes with a disclaimer: Warning, kids at play, with four high school students expected to go in the top 10.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLAY MATVICK, CNN/SI CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The stage is set, the hats are styled and as NBA draft day looms, the focus is on not on Naismith Award winner Shane Battier and other collegiates, but rather on kids who most significant prior event was probably their high school prom.
KWAME BROWN, PROJECTED LOTTERY PICK: You're going to take a gamble with anyone. You may take a player and you think he's the best thing since Michael Jordan and then turn out to be a lemon. So, I think you're going to take a gamble with everyone.
LENNY WILKINS, TORONTO RAPTORS HEAD COACH: I think the fact is that in most case, guys lack the experience or they lack, you know, the mental, physical, emotional maturity. Some have it and some don't, you know, and there's more that don't have it.
MATVICK: It's a fact of current NBA life, and a general manager's increasingly dilemma. Do you take a sure thing like Battier, a collegiate All-American or gamble on a glittering youngster?
SCOTT SKILES, PHOENIX SUNS HEAD COACH: Sometimes, I feel sorry for our scouting staff because they have to go to high school games now. It's just the nature of what's going on. As long as those rules are in place that allow guys to try to make that jump and guys feel they're talented enough, they're going to try to make it.
PETE BABCOCK, ATLANTA HAWKS GENERAL MANAGER: With Kobe Bryant, everybody talks about what a great player he is, which he is, in his rookie year, he played 15 1/2 minutes a game. People forget that. So, he had to pay his dues and sit and spend time on the bench and most of these young guys will wind up doing the same thing.
MATVICK: Forced to choose, most teams gamble and the stakes have never been higher than this year's draft. Three high schoolers, Eddy Curry, Kwame Brown and Tyson Chandler could among Wednesday's top five selections. A record 75 underclassman and international players declared themselves draft-eligible this year.
CHUCK DALY, FRM. NBA HEAD COACH: They don't know what they're getting into because it's a very tough league. I'll never forget the first year I came into the league, I wanted to cry at the end of the season because it's a tough job, it's a man's job and, you know, they probably ought to be enjoying school and collegiate life and that sort of thing, but it's just a fact of life.
DONNIE WALSH, INDIANA PACERS GENERAL MANAGER: Personally, I think that, you know, a young man has the right to do what he wants with his life, and we do it in other areas, I don't know why we would, you know, stop it in basketball. So I don't like it, but I don't know what to do with.
MATVICK: Underclassman and high school players have been allowed to enter the draft since 1971, when Spencer Haywood sued for early entry. Only three, Moses Malone, Daryl Dawkins and Bill Willoughby made the jump to the high school until 1995, when Kevin Garnett did. Kobe Bryant followed in '96 and Tracy McGrady in '97. Now, sometimes their experiences appeal more than a college scholarship.
EDDY CURRY, PROJECTED LOTTERY PICK: I'd like to go top five, BUT IF it doesn't happen, I won't be that disappointed. I'll be in the NBA, and I'm going to work my way into a starting position. Hopefully, rookie of year.
BROWN: Hopefully, I'll get in a situation where I can learn from a veteran player, then one maybe two years, however long it takes, I'll get to start, and then when it's my time it's my time.
MATVICK: A precociousness that seemingly won't go away.
I'm Clay Matvick.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
OKMIN: Well, the action doesn't begin for a few more hours, but the first move of the day has already been felt. CNN/"Sports Illustrated" has learned that the Atlanta Hawks have traded their first round pick, third overall, along with two players to Vancouver for Shareef Abdur-Rahim along with the Grizzlies' first round pick, number 27. Abdur-Rahim is an Atlanta native and is the Grizzlies' all-time leading scorer, averaging 20 points and nine rebounds last season. And at 24 years old, he is a grizzled veteran in the NBA by now.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, by comparison the kids we're talking about here. I have to ask you about that. Does the NBA perceive this at all as a problem to have all of a sudden a situation where you have more underclassman and high schoolers now in this draft than you have positions available, let alone that the seniors that are going to be in the draft as well?
OKMIN: You know, we have been talking about this all morning. It's such an entering topic and commissioner David Stern does want to impose an age limit. He'd like to see it at 20 years old. The players union isn't going for it. So, right now the league is beginning a developmental league and they have to be 20 years old and there will be exception for 18-year-olds who are picked up by a team and then they're released.
It's a hard, hard subject to talk about. But baseball players and tennis players and hockey players all have the kids. They take them from high school. The problem is in the NBA, it's 82 games. Even physically, if they can match up and they can hold their own for 82 games, that's a lot of time to be in the grown-up world for these 18-year-old kids.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The other fascinating part of this we've been talking about in the morning is what happens to the kids ho did -- who have done what we're said they were supposed to do...
OKMIN: Kobe Bryant.
HARRIS: No, the ones that stay.
OKMIN: Shane Battier.
HARRIS: Like a Shane Battier, who has stayed in school for four years and is going to get the college degree only to watch his stock fall as compared to someone who came out after his sophomore and freshman year; would've done better, could've cost him millions of dollars just to go and get your college education.
OKMIN: So, all Shane Battier has done is go to college for four years, win a national championship, get good grades, got incredible confidence and leadership and you're right, we're watching his stock go down maybe as low as seventh.
It sends a weird message, and his agent isn't happy about it. His agent keeps saying, all everybody has had is four years to pick at my guy. Maybe they have seen him too much, maybe we're giving the opportunity to just show his warts and to talk about his warts instead of all the things we've been praising him for four years.
HARRIS: I don't feel too sorry for him. By dropping down, he's going to go to a better team.
HARRIS: We were talking about what happened to Mark Madsen coming out of Stanford last year. Where'd he end up? Oh, he dropped down so far he ended up with the Lakers. He has a ring on his finger.
HARRIS: But Battier's got a better collection of skills than these guys coming in. He's got a better chance of having a better and longer career anyway. So, if I had to bet on someone who's going to get a better deal three years from now, I'd be going with Battier.
OKMIN: You know what, guys, we have to also remember for every Kobe Bryant, for every Kevin Garnett, there's a guy like a Korleone Young. There's a high school kid who, where is he right now? And I think he is in a league somewhere, but those are the kids we need to follow and we need to remember because Kevin and Kobe are two amazing young men, and not all high school players can handle it.
HARRIS: But you know how kids are, they follow the exception more than the rule. Thanks, Laura.
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