Nineteen-year-old Kevin Garnett is hoping to slam-dunk his way into the NBA. But he may find that bouncing from high school straight to the pros isn’t as easy as making a free-throw shot.
The All-American center from Chicago’s Farragut High School is likely to be only the fourth player to skip college to go to the pros through the NBA’s college draft. Moses Malone, Darryl Dawkins and Bill Willoughby did it; Seattle’s Shawn Kemp sat out his first year of college and entered the draft in 1989.
“I’m hearing that Vancouver and Toronto (the two newest cities to get NBA teams) are going to consider drafting him,” says ESPN’s Mark Schwarz, who will cover the draft for the all-sports network (TNT will carry the draft live Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. CDT). Van-couver drafts sixth, and Toronto has the seventh pick.
Kevin got into the draft because his college test scores are too low to qualify for an athletic scholarship at a Division 1 school. (We couldn’t catch up with the busy Kevin for a talk.)
“The one thing that bothers me is everybody thinking I just, you know, got into this without thinking it over,” Kevin told Sports Illustrated. “I thought about it a lot, and I think I’m ready.”
Does he have the tools to make it in the NBA at such a young age? A lot of experts think so.
“He has a lot of great skills in basketball,” says hyper ESPN analyst Dick Vitale. Among those skills are his quickness, agility and passing ability. Dickie V. says Kevin can also handle the ball, and is really mobile for a big kid.
Marty Blake, director of scouting for the NBA, thinks “too much is being made about him being a high school kid.” Dickie V. adds that high school baseball and hockey players sign pro contracts all the time.
The view is Kevin needs to bulk up if he’s going to mix it up with the Karl Malones and Charles Barkleys. Chances are Kevin won’t make an immediate impact, but “he would be a nice little guy to certainly start to formulate your nucleus for the future,” Dickie V. says.
It’s Kevin’s lack of worldly exper-ience that is causing some people to worry about his fate in the NBA.
“He’s dealing with guys who are 30, and he’s dealing with the money (should be millions of dollars) and independence and hotels and women,” says Mark Schwarz. “Those hurdles are as formidable as any he’ll have on the court.”
Dickie V. thinks it would be good to get Kevin with a team that will look out for him and take his young age into account. Playing for Toronto might be cool, Dickie V. says, because general manager Isiah Thomas is a former player who could take Kevin under his wing.
Tomorrow night, an NBA team will probably call Kevin Garnett’s name and take a chance on him. And while his trip along the NBA road is surely lined with gold, it is a trip that sounds like there’s a lot of rough going ahead.
CHATTING UP KEVIN
Age: 19. Height: 6 feet 11.
Weight: 217 pounds.
Position: Center.
School: Farragut High School, Chicago. (He moved to Chicago from Mauldin, S.C., in 1994.)
Averages, senior year: 26 points, 18 rebounds, 6 assists, and 6 steals per game.
Awards: Illinois’ Mr. Basketball 1995 and voted most valuable player at McDonald’s high school All-American Game.
