NEW YORK “”mdash; For years, UCLA basketball had been expected to
produce top-flight draft picks. All-Americans such as Ed
O’Bannon and Baron Davis being selected in the NBA lottery
had been the norm.
But for the past six years, UCLA has been out of the mix. All of
its top-flight recruits under Steve Lavin fizzled out, and none
ever reached their potential in terms of getting to the NBA.
But that all ended on Wednesday, when All-Pac-10 performer
Jordan Farmar was selected by the Lakers in the first round.
It wasn’t so much that Farmar went in the first round, but
the fact that Farmar was taken by such a high profile team as the
Lakers, and people (such as ESPN’s Dick Vitale) were talking
about UCLA basketball again.
Even the New York Knicks fans, shocked by their team’s
selection of South Carolina’s Renaldo Balkman, took a second
out of their misery to cheer for the man they recognized for his
performance in this year’s NCAA Tournament.
It was a sign of the progress that coach Ben Howland has made
during his first three years in the program.
Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak, a man most Lakers fans
agreeably dislike, came up on the big screen at Madison Square
Garden to marvel at the professionalism Farmar showed during his
workouts and during his interviews, and recognized his knowledge of
the game at the young age of 19.
Former Washington guard Brandon Roy, who matched up against
Farmar in the Pac-10 for two years and was selected No. 6, also had
good things to say about the former UCLA point guard.
“He’s a competitor, and he led his team to the
highest level of the sport (reaching the championship game),”
Roy said. “There is not much else you can ask for. He is
going to have a long professional career ahead of him.”
Overall, it was quite a fortunate night for Farmar. The first
point guard was not selected until the No. 21 pick, and green room
invitee Marcus Williams was still available a few picks before
Farmar.
But the Lakers saw some of the same potential in Farmar that
Howland had seen three years earlier, and selected him before other
Pac-10 standouts Leon Powe (Cal), Bobby Jones (Washington), and
Hassan Adams (Arizona), who all fell to the second round.
ESPN analyst Jay Bilas even announced that the Lakers got a
steal with Farmar at the 26th pick.
But in the end, the night was bigger than just Farmar. It was a
night to celebrate UCLA basketball being back on the map. It was a
night to celebrate senior Ryan Hollins being drafted after being
considered dead in the water just a year earlier.
It was a night to celebrate UCLA having 100 players drafted,
more than any other university in the nation. And it was a sign to
all potential recruits that UCLA is once again a place where a
player’s NBA dreams can be realized.
In the next few years, forward Luc Richard Mbah a Moute will
likely be taken in the draft lottery or at least the first round.
So will current recruit Kevin Love if he decides to come to
UCLA.
But no matter how highly those players get drafted, or how big
their contracts are, the 2006 season and the 2006 NBA Draft will be
remembered as when UCLA basketball was put back on the map.
E-mail Parikh at sparikh@media.ucla.edu if you were shocked
Kevin Pittsnogle didn’t get drafted.