CBS Sportsline Column - 2005 Draft

[Greenhead22]

Lies pile up, leaving humiliated players in their wake

Gregg Doyel June 29, 2005
By Gregg Doyel
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer

The guilty should be exposed. They are fathers and agents, summer coaches and leaches, handlers and enablers. They are anyone and everyone responsible for what happened Tuesday night -- the most humiliating NBA Draft in history.

Every year, a player or two is stunned to slip on NBA Draft night. Rashard Lewis thought he was a first-rounder in 1998. Marcus Taylor thought he would be drafted by someone -- anyone -- in 2002. It's sad, but it happens. It's routine.

What happened Tuesday night was not routine. This was . Multiple players with promise -- some collegians, some high school seniors -- were shocked not to be drafted in the first round. Or any round.

Players made these decisions, but the people around them deserve scrutiny, too.

Someone told Saint Joseph's junior Dwayne Jones that he would be drafted -- perhaps in the first round, definitely in the second. Someone lied. The NBA is already full of post players who can't score. Jones went undrafted, a damper on a draft party that included friends, family and cameras.

Someone told high school senior C.J. Miles that he would be drafted in the first round. No perhaps about it, he was a No. 1 draft pick. Someone lied. Miles is skilled, but he's not that skilled. He went in the second round to Utah, and now Miles is considering attending Texas after all. That's what he should have done all along. Only now, it would be after he has sacrificed his chance to become a first-round pick -- and an instant millionaire.

Jones has said all along that his adviser has been his father, Dwayne Sr. Miles has been advised by his father, Calvin. Forgive me, son, I know not what I do.

Someone told Florida junior Matt Walsh that he, too, was a possible first-round draft pick. Someone lied. Walsh shoots from his chin, which a 6-foot-6 player can do in the NBA only if he has the quickness to get to the rim, forcing his defender to back off. Walsh lacks that quickness, which is why today he lacks a team. He also had a draft party, which also ended in embarrassment.

Someone told 6-3 high school senior Monta Ellis that he was a first-round pick. Someone lied. Only one high school player 6-3 or shorter has ever been drafted in the first round. That was Sebastian Telfair, last season. Ellis can't dribble like Telfair, pass like Telfair or jump like Telfair. Otherwise, Ellis is exactly like Telfair.

Walsh and Ellis hired agents.

Walsh hired Jason Levien, who apparently advised North Carolina State's Josh Powell to turn pro in 2003 after his sophomore season. Powell went undrafted by the NBA, though he was taken by Sioux Falls of the CBA, after which Levien bragged that, "It is a real feather in his cap that the Sioux Falls Skyforce thinks so highly of him."

Levien also became LSU senior Jaime Lloreda's agent shortly after Lloreda sabotaged his draft stock in 2004 by quitting the team with an injury -- despite being cleared to play by LSU doctors.

Ellis hired Andy Miller, the agent who was linked to scandals involving Erick Barkley of St. John's and Florida's Mike Miller when they were still in school. Ellis went in the second round Tuesday, which will hurt Andy Miller's bottom line but might just crush Ellis' entire NBA future.

Someone told Kentucky junior Kelenna Azubuike and Duke junior Shavlik Randolph that they needed to be in this draft. Someone lied.

Azubuike has an NBA body and explosion, and he's a nice shooter, but he can't dribble from Point A to Point B if there's a traffic cone in between. For someone who stands about 6-4, that's bad.

At least Azubuike was an above-average college player. Randolph was not. He was a bust, one of the biggest recruiting busts in recent memory. So of course he entered the NBA Draft. Like Azubuike, Randolph went undrafted.

Azubuike's father, Kenneth, is going to jail for fraud and owes roughly $330,000 in fines and restitution. Randolph's father, Kenny, also has fallen on hard financial times. While Shavlik was at Duke, his father's company succumbed to bankruptcy, reportedly with liabilities of $4.9 million and a $4.7 million federal tax lien.

Today is humiliating for all of those players ... and for draft rejects like Alabama junior Kennedy Winston and Kentucky freshman Randolph Morris ... and for second-round surprises like high school senior Andray Blatche and Pittsburgh sophomore Chris Taft.

The players should be humiliated. They did this to themselves.

But let's not fool ourselves. They had help.

[rebelduckaholic]

Some of these agents are nothing but snakes