If Kevin Love leaves UCLA, it'll be no surprise
Mark Heisler / On the NBA
With all due respect to Kevin Love's family, who did a great job raising him, the notion that they're shocked -- shocked! -- at our Diane Pucin's report that their baby boy is going pro is standard, according to the protocol by which top collegians enter the NBA draft, almost invariably at the earliest opportunity.
1. Arrive on campus. Say you're a (choose one: Bruin, Trojan, Buckeye, Longhorn, et al) and that's all you're concerned with.
2. Play the season. This takes months but is mandatory since pro teams want to know if you're actually any good.
3. After the season, announce you haven't given the NBA any thought and must consider your options.
4. Interview agents, all of whom promise you'll go as one of the NBA's lottery draft picks. See which agents looksincere and who's so slick, he has to hold on to the end table to keep from sliding off your couch.
5. Hold a press conference to make the dramatic announcement ... you're going pro!
With all due respect to Kevin, whose personality is right there with his extraordinary sense for the game, he was headed for the 2008 draft a long time before he got to UCLA.
A year ago in the first test of the new 19-year-old age rule for NBA picks, thereafter to be known as the One-and-Done Rule, Ohio Sate's Greg Oden completed steps 1-5 while Coach Thad Matta continued to hold out hope he'd return.
Apparently, Matta and Oden were in parallel universes. In Oden's, turning pro was a foregone conclusion for weeks, since Michael Conley Sr. -- the father of teammate Mike Conley Jr. and an Oden advisor for years -- announced he was going into the agent business.
Texas' Kevin Durant was the one who actually intended to return to school -- until Nike sent the word it was willing to give him a $40-million deal.
At that point Love, a friend of Durant, said he advised him, "The only thing you can do is go down [in draft status] or get hurt, so you might as well go."
It didn't take Freudian analysis to suspect Love's advice would apply in his own case.
As if to confirm the obvious, his father, Stan, made several comments that further suggested they already knew what they wanted to do, like saying of the current system, "You're forced out if you're any good."
Oh, and designating a family friend to screen agents might have been another clue.
