Telfair, Johnson distant from March Madness

Both Raptors drafted straight from high school

TORONTO • If they had just been a few years younger, Sebastian Telfair and Amir Johnson might have been college teammates.

Both players initially committed to attending the University of Louisville, with Telfair slated to join the Cardinals for the 200405 season and Johnson the year after that. Alas, neither player ever made it. Telfair, one of the most-hyped high school players of all time, ultimately declared for the 2004 NBA draft. He was one of eight players to forgo college and get picked in the first round that year, selected 13th by Portland. In part because he saw how many high school players were selected in 2004, Johnson decided to follow the same path. He spurned Louisville, and was picked 56 th overall by the Pistons in 2005.

And that was it. Johnson was the last high school player to be drafted before the NBA instituted a rule that mandated players be at least one year removed from their graduat- ing class before they could enter the draft. Johnson and Telfair are of a dying breed. When the NCAA men’s basketball tournament arrives around each year, they feel a bit lost.

“You can’t really connect with it,” Johnson, the Toronto Raptors big man, said on Thursday. “These guys that went to college, they always talk about what seed they were, who they were playing against. I can’t really connect with that because I’ve been in the NBA for so long.”

“You can’ t put yourself there and understand it,” Telfair, a Raptors backup point guard, added. “You kind of feel detached. It doesn’t feel that good.”

Not that there are any regrets for either player. First of all, there is the obvious — Johnson and Telfair are still playing in the NBA, with 10-plus-year careers in sight. However, both players learned invaluable lessons early in their careers.

Johnson consistently mentions Rasheed Wallace and Ben Wallace, who starred in Detroit when Johnson was a young player, as mentors. He spent lots of time in the D-League since minutes with the Pistons were scarce, but he says the league helped him grow tremendously.

On the surface, Telfair’s would be an example that proves there is some merit to the insistence on a year of college. For all of his gifts with the ball, he has never de- veloped a jump shot, connecting just 39% from the floor for his career. Accordingly, he has now bounced around the league, playing for eight different teams.

“I definitely don’t regret it in any kind of way,” Telfair said. “I wish I could go back and have that experience, because I know, the older that I get, that experiences mean a lot. They define who you are at the end of the day. But I know a couple of guys who were in my same position who went to school and never got to the NBA. I’m here, and this is the ultimate goal, no matter what route you take, especially if you’ve played as long as I’ve been playing.”

That brings up the expected question: Does the NBA have any right to insist players wait a year before declaring for the draft? We are long past the point of thinking the league was doing this for selfless reasons: Of those eight highschool players taken in the first round in 2004, seven are still in the league, with four playing huge roles for their teams.

Johnson, meanwhile, is one of five high-school players who slipped to the second round in 2005 but are still in the league, joining C.J. Miles, Lou Williams, Andray Blatche and Monta Ellis. Blatche has had a turbulent career, but he is still getting paid.

“The rule shouldn’t exist,” Telfair said. “I think if a kid feels that he has the talent, and that’s what he wants to do, playing in the pros, it’s up to the NBA teams to draft him or not. The kid can’t make a team draft him. I don’t think it’s fair, especially with all of the sports where kids are coming in much earlier. If a kid has an opportunity to go out and work, I think he should be able to … do that no matter what the outcome is. You’re not protecting anybody from anything.”