Hewitt uncertain of Young, Crittenton's plans
With the deadline fast approaching, Georgia Tech basketball coach Paul Hewitt said Wednesday he doesn't know if freshmen Thaddeus Young or Javaris Crittenton will enter the NBA draft.
"If anybody is trying to get a sneak peek, I think their commitment to school speaks a lot," the coach said. "Until somebody comes to me and says, 'Coach, I want to put my name in the draft,' I?m assuming they?re going to be back. That's the way they're conducting themselves in class, study hall and everything."
Underclassmen have until April 29 to declare for the draft, although they may later withdraw their names as long as they don't sign with an agent. Neither player has publicly stated his plans.
In trying to gain a feel for where they might go in the draft, underclassmen can submit their names to an NBA underclass committee, which Hewitt said met Friday for the first time.
"If you submit your name for review, they will give you a reading in 10 days to two weeks," the Tech coach said. "They have about eight general managers and player personnel people, the people who do the picking."
Asked if Young or Javaris Crittenton, who each averaged 14.2 points to lead Tech, submitted their names, Hewitt said, "I'm not going to say. That's their private business." He said both players are participating in individual workouts and lifting weights with teammates.
Hewitt went through the process with freshman Chris Bosh in 2003 and junior Jarrett Jack in 2005. The committee suggested that Bosh would be drafted between second and seventh (he went fourth, to Toronto), and Jack would be picked between 14th and 20th (he went 22nd to Denver, which traded him to Portland).
"What we did with Jarrett is the day before he had to pull [his name] out, there was a range [he was projected to go within] and we went down the list calling those general managers," Hewitt said. "The question we asked simply was, 'If he's on the board, are you going to take him?' If they say yes, you've got a guarantee. If they say no, you move onto the next one.
"I take it very seriously that my job is to gather information and not to try to sway them. I'm in a no-win situation. If I tell them to leave, and it doesn't work out, then I gave them bad advice. If I tell them to stay, the automatic assumption is that the coach is looking out for his own interests."
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