October 5, 2008
At 19, Plotting New Path to N.B.A., via Europe
By
PETE THAMEL
ROME — Brandon Jennings likes fettuccine Alfredo, but he never envisioned eating it for lunch near the Pantheon.
Jennings, 19, is a basketball player, and a trailblazer of sorts. He is the first American to play professionally in Europe directly out of high school. He signed this summer with Lottomatica Virtus Roma, a top team, and he is forging a cutting-edge career path.
Jennings, of Compton, Calif., was unsure about meeting the academic requirements for a scholarship to the
University of Arizona after he signed a letter of intent to play there.
Instead he chose to play in Italy, where he will earn $1.2 million this season in salary and endorsements, including a shoe contract with Under Armour. Roma signed Jennings to a three-year deal but has little at risk because his contract must be bought out if he leaves for the
National Basketball Association. If Jennings has a strong season with Roma and is among the top 10 selected in next June’s
N.B.A. draft, as expected, more players may follow his route. “I think it’s going to change the game a lot,” he said. “If they don’t change the rule, I think you’re going to see more kids test the waters and try to make a name for themselves overseas.”
The N.B.A. changed its eligibility rules for the 2006 draft, requiring players to be at least a year past their high school graduating class before turning pro. That has invigorated the college game and given stars like Derrick Rose, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant, who might have entered the draft after high school, a taste of campus life. The question of how many players will follow Jennings’s path to the N.B.A. lingers at all levels. Sonny Vaccaro, the former sneaker company executive who orchestrated Jennings’s move, said that the families of 12 elite high school players had contacted him. They are intrigued by the notion of going to Europe.
“I think we’re going to have a revolution, and Brandon Jennings, a kid from Compton, is going to start it,” Vaccaro said in a telephone interview.
Jennings’s decision, driven by circumstance and opportunity, is challenging the custom that an elite player must attend college before he pursues his dream of playing in the N.B.A. Playing professionally in Europe suits Jennings’s basketball goals and is far more lucrative than a college scholarship. He was an all-American at Oak Hill Academy in Virginia and was considered the nation’s top point guard.
No one knows the effect that a parade of elite players taking Jennings’s path would have on the college game, and the flow of players to Europe is expected to be a trickle rather than a flood. The
N.C.A.A. tournament has thrived even though a generation of stars like
Kevin Garnett,
Kobe Bryant and
LeBron James skipped college for the N.B.A. “I don’t know what’s going to happen in terms of other people,”
Myles Brand, the president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, said in a recent interview. “But I would hope and expect that most would want to go to college, not just to play basketball but to get an education.”
David Stern, the N.B.A. commissioner, is an advocate for having high school players wait a year to enter the league. He said that Jennings would probably have a better basketball experience in Europe than in college. N.B.A. teams have sophisticated scouting systems abroad, Stern said, and 74 international players began last season on league rosters.
“I actually think it’s a pretty cool thing for a kid to do what he’s doing,” Stern said. “There’s a big world out there. If you want to play for Rome as opposed to Arizona, go ahead and do what you think is best. It’s a positive development for kids and for the N.B.A. scouts.”
At lunch near the Pantheon, Jennings spun fettuccine Alfredo on his fork and referred to playing college basketball several times as “the easy road.” Jennings said he regretted that he did not declare his intentions to play in Europe before he left high school. He said he would have received a bigger contract and shoe deal if there had been more hype.
Instead, Jennings, an admittedly apathetic student, signed a letter of intent to attend Arizona and planned to stay there only one season. But he struggled to reach a standardized test score to meet the N.C.A.A. minimum for a scholarship. (He and his mother, Alice Knox, said that his last SAT score was questioned by the testing service and that they still had not received it.) Jennings said he had strongly considered taking the year off, receiving a shoe company sponsorship and working out until the draft. That was until he and his mother heard Vaccaro talking on the radio about Europe as an option for high school basketball players. Jennings called Vaccaro, and about two months later, he was in Rome.
“Going to college was something that I didn’t want to do,” Jennings said. “If I did that and came to the league and I’m not ready, and then I have to wait two years for my turn. Why not come overseas and learn the pro game and be ahead of everybody?”
But his workday is not a stroll in the piazza. The 6-foot-2 Jennings, Roma’s youngest player by five years, is coached by the demanding Jasmin Repesa, who also coaches Croatia’s national team. The team practices twice a day, with skill work and weight lifting in the morning and more traditional practice at night.
Jennings is comfortable because he has three American teammates, and the team’s primary language is English. He lives with his mother and half-brother in a posh apartment provided by the team. Yet during training camp in September, Repesa, whose booming voice could quiet an Oktoberfest beer tent at last call, threw Jennings out of practice one day for not cutting hard in a drill.
“I was like, Man, I got kicked out of practice for that,” Jennings said. “But it was lesson learned, and we moved on.”
That moment was an anomaly. Repesa said Jennings had improved significantly, especially on defense, during his first month. He led the team in scoring, averaging about 20 points through five exhibition games.
Roma’s general manager, Dejan Bodiroga, said he had been impressed with Jennings’s attitude, work ethic and determination. That has coalesced with his natural ability.
“He’s one of the top talents that I’ve ever seen,” Bodiroga said.
So far, Roma seems happy with the result, and Jennings is likely to play plenty of minutes when the 65-game season begins later this month.
Claudio Toti, Roma’s owner and president, said he expected other European clubs to try to lure top American prospects next year.
“Rome opened the door,” he said. “It could be an important signing for young people.”
