Despite media reports in the Los Angeles Times to the contrary, UCLA center Kevin Love and point guard Darren Collison have not informed UCLA that they will be entering the NBA draft, coach Ben Howland announced Wednesday in a press conference.
A report on Tuesday said that Love and Collison had both met with Howland and informed him of their decision to enter the draft. Howland flatly denied that either had informed him of anything, and said that he had not yet met with Collison at all.
“I never met with Darren on Monday; I never spoke to Darren on Monday; I did not see him; I did not e-mail him; I did not text him,” Howland said. “So that was not accurate.”
Howland did meet with Love on Monday to inform him of his draft status. Howland has been collecting information from various scouts and NBA officials and informed Love that according to that information, he will go anywhere from No. 4 to No. 14 in the NBA draft were he to declare.
Howland also said that he will caution all of his players to not hire agents so as to retain their eligibility in the case that they suffer an injury during pre-draft workouts. Hiring an agent would eliminate the players’ college eligibility.
“My recommendation and one of the things I told Kevin, and I will tell both the Westbrooks and the Collisons when I meet with them over the next few days is they should definitely not sign with an agent, even if they put their name in,” Howland said. “And also keep going to school.”
Howland said that the information he has collected has indicated that Collison and guard Russell Westbrook could go anywhere from 15-25 in the draft, and that Josh Shipp and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute would currently not be projected in the first round.
UCLA will be in a precarious position over the next few weeks as the April 27 deadline for declaring for the draft approaches. All three of the players named could decide to enter the draft, forward Alfred Aboya could decide to forgo his final year of eligibility to pursue a master’s degree, and forward Nikola Dragovic could decide to return home to Serbia to play professionally.
Howland will meet with all of his players individually over the next week to discuss their futures.
Love returned home to Lake Oswego, Ore. yesterday for his father Stan’s 59th birthday and is expected to discuss his future with his parents over the weekend.
“He’s gonna sit with his parents over the weekend and at that time try to formulate some decision as to what he wants to do,” Howland said.
Collison’s parents returned from the Final Four in San Antonio late Tuesday night, and Collison told Howland that a determination will not be made until Collison meets with them.
Howland said that both Collison and his parents were upset about the erroneous report and he cautioned the media to be more discerning in their reporting.
“He was very upset and he was calling frantically because everybody was calling him,” Howland said. “And then secondly his mom and dad got off the plane … late last night. (His mom) called this morning really upset about it.
“My whole thing is I understand there’s competition within this room to break the first information … but doing so, in some cases as in this case, it compromised the players and their families and their feelings.”
Playing at times this year with as few as eight scholarship players, Howland acknowledged that recruiting over the next few months will be of paramount importance to the program, especially if upwards of three of his players choose to leave.
“We were incredibly lucky to sign Russell Westbrook (in spring of his senior year),” Howland said. “There aren’t that many Russells. The next Westbrook is out there still.
“Someone asked me today, “˜Well, are you gonna take some time off now?’ No, that’s not what I’m going to do.”