AJ, Mac MINNEAPOLIS--Kevin Garnett says there is "no running away, no looking back." At 19, he is the youngest player in the NBA and that's all there is to it. He will never know what college basketball might have been like.
The Minnesota Timberwolves rookie, the No. 5 pick in last June's draft, isn't ready to say it would be right for any other high school player, including wunderkind Kobe Bryant, a 6-foot-6 guard from Lower Merion, a Philadelphia suburb, but it was right for him.
Bryant, son of former NBA forward Joe Bryant, has been holding open the option of bypassing college and going directly to the pros. Will he do it? Should he?
"TELL KOBE TO BE HIS own man," Garnett said. "Tell him that once he's in (the pros), there's no turning back. But it has to be his decision, and only his.
"He has to stay smart, he has to know that's what he wants. But whatever he decides, whether it's college or the NBA, he has to put all his effort into it. It's hard, because people come at you, saying a lot of things. Friends, agents, crazy people. But with me, it wasn't my mother making the decision, it wasn't my boys at home, it wasn't my high school coach, it was me."
Garnett, a slim, wiry 6-11, 220-pound forward from Mauldin, S.C., spent his senior season in the grim inner city of Chicago at Admiral Farragut Academy. He averaged 25.2 points, 17.9 rebounds, 6.5 blocks and 6.7 assists, didn't get the required Scholastic Achievement Test scores to qualify for an NCAA Division I scholarship, did get the urge to skip the experience.
Hello, Minneapolis, where, so far, he has been an off-the-bench role player as a small forward. Sometimes he shows bursts of his immense talent, other times he is trapped by his inexperience. He already has seen Bill Blair, his first coach, fired after 20 games, replaced for the remainder of the season by general manager Flip Saunders.
"I have no idea how this kid didn't pass the SAT," Blair said. "He's bright as hell ... Maybe, in a way, it's good that he came directly to us, because he has no college habits to break. He picks up things as quickly as any rookie I've ever coached, and that includes Michael Jordan when I was (an assistant) with Chicago."
No one, including Blair, Wolves vice president Kevin McHale and his teammates, seems to be sure whether Garnett eventually will emerge as a small forward, a power forward or even a center. But they all seem convinced he has an immense upside and needs only time and patience.
"IN HIGH SCHOOL, HE played with his back to the basket," Blair said. "Here, at least for now, he's facing the basket and it's new to him. But once he gets some strength, he'll take guys in the post and kill them.
"I don't know what it would be like to coach another kid coming from high school, but coaching Kevin has been a delight. He's unbelievably coachable. He tries, he tries not to make mistakes. And if he makes one, he tries not to make it again."
Still, it's a difficult concept. Garnett's high school-to-the-pros predecessors -- Moses Malone, Bill Willoughby, Darryl Dawkins and Shawn Kemp -- have had mixed results. In Garnett's case, he accepted a three-year contract under the new rookie salary cap, getting a total of $5.6 million.
Should he have waited, enjoyed the college experience, or should he have turned pro, stepping in to a lifestyle in which many of his teammates are 10 to 12 years older, with different interests, different agendas?
Garnett insists the transition isn't nearly as difficult as people have suggested.
"It's basketball," he said. "I never played in college, so I don't know what college ball is like. But I went with my heart. No regrets. No looking back."
THE WOLVES COULD HAVE taken Damon Stoudamire or just about anyone else still on the board after Joe Smith, Antonio McDyess, Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace went in the top four picks. McHale, who won three titles and appeared in seven All-Star Games in his 13 seasons with the Boston Celtics, says, "it's probably the easiest draft I'll ever have.
"Really, high school kids shouldn't come out, but there are going to be odd cases and Kevin's one of those. The vehicle is there for them if they want it. Baseball and hockey have been drafting 17-year-olds for years, putting them in the minor leagues. If we had that kind of system, we'd have been doing it, too.
"In so many cases, the development of a kid from freshman year in college to senior year is huge. I was 22 when I finished. I had played for Bobby Knight in the Pan-Am Games, had played in the World University Games and spent four years in the Big 10 (at Minnesota), and I wasn't ready. I remember one of the first guys I played against was Caldwell Jones (of the 76ers). He was tall, skinny and I wasn't impressed when I saw him. Then he beat me all over the place and I said, 'Whoa, where are the bad guys?'"
McHale admits had the Wolves been a playoff contender, a team with immediate championship aspirations, Stoudamire -- now a strong Rookie of the Year candidate with Toronto -- would have been a better choice.
"But that's not where we are," he said. "And as I watched Garnett, I said these are the kind of skills Red Auerbach saw when he took Larry Bird, knowing he'd have to wait a year to get him. Sometimes you have to wait on greatness. I mean, every team in the NHL wishes it had taken Wayne Gretzky early. One team did."
Garnett is raw, but he can run, jump, pass, rebound and block shots. More critically, McHale said, "He knows how to play.
"THERE ARE GOING TO BE nights when he doesn't play well, nights when he doesn't play a lot," McHale said. "But Philly is close to Atlantic City, so the people there will understand when I say we're betting on the outcome. We could be making a big hit."
But unlike Smith, who is living with his mother in the Bay area, Garnett is living with friends. Garnett's mother, Shirley Irby, has returned to South Carolina. It's Kevin's world now.
"If you're going to take this step with a high school kid, the first thing you have to do is take over," said John Lucas, Sixers coach and general manager. "That could mean battling with the agent, with the family. The agent is going to have places for him to be, endorsements, appearances. You have to show right away that you're in charge. No one else.
"That's where my concept of a sort of corporate house for young players would come in. I'd have a family overseeing it, preparing meals, putting up a schedule. Do you think a kid is going to come wandering in at 4 a.m. if he knows somebody is waiting? Is he going to be eating fast food or doughnuts if he knows a meal is waiting at a specified time?
"It's interesting, a kid thinks he's coming to the pros to find freedom and instead he finds structure. At the same time, he doesn't want Mom or Dad around -- I'll admit Smith is an exception -- because that's not cool. And Mom and Dad don't have their little boy any more. They have a son who's a pro."
Who knows, then, what Bryant -- or any of the other top schoolboys across the country -- might decide? The Wolves Doug West, from Villanova, has played against Bryant in summer pickup games.
"I hear all the top high school kids talking about whether they should come out," West said. "I think the best thing I could tell any of them right now is, wait till the end of the season. Then go talk to Kevin."
The Milwaukee Bucks, who usually wear purple on the road, have new "alternate" road uniforms -- green with purple, black and white trim, "Bucks" across the front of the jersey, the numeral on the lower left and a deer head on the lower right. "They're nice," guard Lee Mayberry said. "We've got Rudolph on the front."
Maybe New Jersey Nets strength and conditioning coach Rich Snedaker ought to talk to Pat Croce, who once held a similar position with the Philadelphia 76ers, about the program he has in mind for 7-6 center Shawn Bradley. "I'm not going to train him like a bodybuilder, I'm going to train him like an athlete," Snedaker said. "One of the misconceptions is that we're trying to get him heavier. We're not. Just stronger." Is that why the Nets gave up Derrick Coleman for Bradley? Because they think they can make him stronger?
In addition to writing this exclusive column for SportsLine USA, Phil Jasner covers the NBA for the Philadelphia Daily News.
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