Huerter takes normal approach to draft
CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. — The hardest part of NBA draft night for Kevin Huerter was keeping a straight face.
He knew, moments before virtually anyone else did, that he was about to become a professional basketball player. Dozens RI IULHQGV DQG IDPLO\ ÀDQNHG him, all their eyes intently on the television screens as they waited for NBA commissioner Adam Silver to give the word that they all came to hear.
But Huerter had gotten a tip through his agent moments before, after a call from New York to his draft party at a country club near his home in an Albany suburb, that his moment was near. So he sat back and waited to see — would it be San Antonio at No. 18 or Atlanta at No. 19? The answer arrived when the Spurs took Miami’s Lonnie Walker IV at No. 18, and with that, it was time to await the next sentence from the commissioner.
“The Atlanta Hawks select Kevin Huerter,” Silver said.
And there it was. The moment.
There was yelling, there was jumping, there even were a few tears. Huerter hugged his mother, then his father, then his brother and then his sisters. The 19-year- old who left Maryland after two seasons had just become the No. 19 pick in the NBA draft, off to the +DZNV DV WKHLU VHFRQG ¿UVW URXQG selection of the evening after they wound up with Oklahoma’s Trae Young following a trade earlier.
Draft day for Huerter was remarkably normal, which was by design. He worked out, went back to his old school and talked to kids, took a dip in his parents’ backyard pool, then sprawled out on a couch to watch an Ace Ventura movie.
“This is who Kevin is,” said Tony Dzikas, Huerter’s coach at Shenendehowa High. “Laidback, special kid, wants to share moments with the people who matter most to him. But on the ÀRRU KH NQRZV H[DFWO\ ZKDW WR do and exactly how to do it. He’s special there too, just in a very different way. The Atlanta Hawks got a winner tonight.”
HUERTER,