List will get a check
Yesterday was one of the days that has been circled for a while on the Celtics' offseason calendar. By midnight, anyone who was not automatically eligible for the 2007 draft -- everyone but that vanishing breed, the college senior -- had to have submitted his name to the home office if he wanted to play in the NBA next season.
This list has become more important in recent years because of the many underclassmen who end up going high in the NBA draft. There are some mock drafts this year in which no senior appears among the top 14 selections (Acie Law of Texas A&M may be the first true senior drafted).
The official list of names will be released later this week by the NBA, at which time Celtics executive director of basketball operations Danny Ainge finally can comment on Kevin Durant, Kevin Durant's mother, and Greg Oden without fear of David Stern's wrath (or worse, his henchmen looking for money). That list always has a few head-scratchers on it, such as Donald Jeffes of Roxbury Community College, who threw his name in last year. To the surprise of no one, including Jeffes himself, he went undrafted.
Oden and Kevin Durant's names will be on the list. They already have declared their intentions and are universally considered the top two picks in the draft. They're investigating agents, shoe deals, all the things that normal freshmen do at this time of year before becoming fabulously wealthy.
Other underclassmen who have said they intend to enter the draft early include: two tempting and tantalizing Wrights, Brandan of North Carolina and Julian of Kansas; the fab four from Florida: Al Horford, Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer, and Taurean Green; and the tantalizing twosome from Georgetown, Roy Hibbert and Jeff Green. There is Oden's Ohio State running mate, freshman Mike Conley Jr., Duke sophomore Josh McRoberts, UCLA junior Aaron Afflalo, LSU's Glen "Big Baby" Davis, and Boston College center-cum-reprobate Sean Williams.
Oden, Kevin Durant, Conley, and Brandan Wright are among perhaps a half-dozen freshmen (or, as they say, rising sophomores) who could be selected in the first round. They are the first group of potential one-and-doners who were forbidden to come to the NBA directly out of high school by the league's new collective bargaining agreement. Kevin Durant and Oden are coming out. Most of the other frosh, including Brandan Wright, a possible top-five pick, have said they will use the next six weeks to gauge their draft status while being blessedly agent free, allowing them to return to school if they don't like what they hear (or perhaps get hurt during draft workouts).
Underagers can withdraw their names by June 18, 10 days before the draft, and retain their college eligibility, provided they haven't hired an agent. Hibbert and Green are in that category, as is sophomore Brandon Rush of Kansas. You can only withdraw from the draft once, however. If you declare, pull out, and then declare again, you are in. That is the case with UCLA's Afflalo.
However, if an underclassman remains in the draft, does not retain an agent, and goes undrafted, he can return to college and is deemed by the NBA to be a free agent. That is what allowed Kentucky forward Randolph Morris to play last season for the Wildcats (after declaring for the 2005 draft and not getting picked) and then sign with the Knicks once his college career ended. (Hypothetically, he could have signed at any time with an NBA team once he went through the '05 draft.)
There also should be a sizable list of international early entries on the list, including intriguing Chinese big man Yi Jianlin, as well as a pair of Italians, guard Marco Belinelli and forward Danilo Gallinari. Yi, a 6-foot-11-inch forward/center, whom the Celtics have scouted, supposedly is 19 (although some claim he is China's Dikembe Mutombo, whose age always has been in dispute). His name appears on many mock drafts in the top 10, though lack of competition may impact his draft position.
In the past, the early entry contingent has been dramatically reduced by draft time once the players hear the dreaded news and start to weigh the chances of playing another season for State U vs. ending up in the NBA's D-League or Slovenia. Last year, the NBA released a list of 94 names in the first week of May. By fish-or-cut-bait time in mid-June, the list was cut in half.
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