Should I stay or should I go? - declaring for the draft - College Basketball Tournament Special

It's a question many talented underclassmen struggle with, and a question John Wallace, Rodrick Rhodes and Scotty Thurman each answered in different ways with different results ...

John Wallace listens to others, but the voice that guides him is the one inside his head. That inner voice was telling him to just do it, do it now. do the thing that made sense only if you had walked a lifetime in his hightops. That voice nearly convinced Wallace to seek immediate. NBA riches at the expense of what has turned out to be the best year of his basketball life. That voice nearly talked Wallace out of a magical senior season that has made him the latest college basketball poster child for the merits of staying in school.

By Wallace's reasoning, the NBA was the next logical step after his junior year at Syracuse. Wallace hadn't chosen basketball as much as basketball had chosen him. He first learned to love the game not for itself, but because of where it could take him. He was ambitious enough, impulsive enough. confident enough to have shaved "Da Man" into his hair in high school. He wanted to get places as fast as he possibly could.

He owed it to himself.

He owed it to his mother.

Before Wallace became a teenager, his mother had been the superglue holding together a broken family. Vanessa Wallace worked two jobs to pay the bills, squeezing in night classes when she could because the alternative was to rely on charity. She cooked at a day-care center, cleaned a doctor's 15-bedroom home. Whatever it took. Her work days would start at 4:30 a.m. and end just about in time to get ready for bed. She moved her three sons from the inner city of Rochester, N.Y., to the suburbs so they could have the best schooling she could afford.

An NBA paycheck would change everything. An NBA paycheck would go a long way toward helping Wallace repay his mother for everything.

"She knew how strong I was about coming out, trying to go to the next level," Wallace says. "At first, I wasn't even thinking about coming to school. She understood it, and she respected me because I'm my own man."

Vanessa Wallace resigned herself to watching her oldest son live with what she feared would be a big mistake. When he belatedly decided to return to Syracuse, tears of relief flooded her eyes.

"She never really told me to stay or to go. but at the same time. she told me how she felt." Wallace says. "You could just see it. It her eyes: She wanted me to stay in school. It felt good. I made my mother happy. I made myself happy at the same time."

Talk about hitting the lottery. Playing against Big Fast competition that Syracuse Coach Jim Boeheim calls "the toughest it's ever been," Wallace was a unanimous first-team all-conference selection this season and a second-team TSN All-American. The Carrier Dome has turned into Wallace World--a raucous place where the roof regularly gets raised by the high-flying exploits of the 6-8 forward.

Wallace stands to see his stock skyrocket higher with a strong showing in the NCAA Tournament. The continuing education offered in the Big Dance is tremendous preparation for the high pressure offered in the NBA. But if Wallace had dumped Syracuse and the NCAA last season, he may have been forced to expand his knowledge in the pro basketball school of hard knocks: the Continental Basketball Association.

As it is, the Orangemen finished the regular season 22-7 and ranked 13th in the AK, poll. Wallace led the team in scoring (22), rebounding (8.8) and blocks (1.8), and was second in assists (2.5). In the process, WalLace elevated himself from NBA suspect to an almost certain lottery pick in this June's draft. He did all that, mind you, while carrying a 21hour class load so that he could get his degree in sociology this spring.

"I've been without money for 21 years," says Wallace, who turned 22 in February. "What's another year?"

Another year in school can be the difference between a fruitful basketball career and a fruitless one. When Wallace applied for a 1995 draft top heavy with talented underclassmen, NBA scouting director Marty Blake called the decision "a catastrophic mistake." The first four picks -- Joe Smith, Antonio McDyess, Jerry Stackhouse and Rasheed Wallace -- turned out to be sophomores. By the end of the first round, the NBA had taken nine underclassmen and one high school player (6-11 Kevin Garnett, who went to Minnesota at No. 5).

Two days before the draft, Wallace withdrew. His announcement came three days after another junior, 6-7 forward Rodrick Rhodes of Kentucky, had pulled out of the draft. Rhodes, decision to come out was scrutinized because he was coming of what draft analyst Don Leventhal characterized as "a less than mediocre junior season."

"Earth to Rodrick: You are not ready yet," Leventhal wrote in his predraft report. "You are only supposed to leave college early for the NBA when you have a good year."

Leventhal described Rhodes as "a talented, inconsistent enigma" and added this advice: "If Rhodes wants to make it in the NBA one day, I believe the best way he could prepare for that would be to leave Kentucky, transfer to a school where he could get a ton of minutes ... and be the man." As it turned out, Rhodes followed precisely that blueprint. He transferred from Kentucky --where he never quite lived up to the hosannas directed his way at St. Anthony High of Jersey City, N.J. -- to Southern California in August. Rhodes and Jason Kidd were considered the nation's top recruits coming out of high school of 1992. While Kidd was earning NBA co-Rookie of the Year honors last season, Rhodes was third-team All-Southeastern Conference.

A John Wooden Award candidate in the preseason, Rhodes wound up second on Kentucky in scoring (12.9), assists (3.8) and steals (1.5) last season. Once Rhodes left, word quickly spread that he got a helpful push out the door from Kentucky Coach Rick Pitino, who wanted to sign Ron Mereer -- considered by some the top prep in the nation. And he happened to play Rhodes, position. Why else, the reasoning went, would Rhodes go to the trouble of leaving a national power and sitting out a redshirt year to play for a struggling USC program?

"My reason for wanting to redshirt as how hungry I was to be an NBA player," Rhodes says. "I did not get pushed out at Kentucky. If I did, why would I keep in touch and still ask advice from a man who `pushed' me out of the school? When I go back to Kentucky, I visit Coach Pitino and his wife. You're hearing it from the horse's mouth. Rodrick Rhodes did not get pushed out of Kentucky."

Rhodes, in fact, credits Pitino for explaining how to investigate all NBA options without closing the door on college. Pitino steered Rhodes, who admittedly was "ignorant" about how the draft process works, away from hiring an agent. Following that advice left Rhodes eligible to return to school when it became apparent that NBA teams considered him a second-round pick at best.

"If not (for Pitino)," Rhodes says, "I probably would have done what Scotty Thurman did." Thurman was a star at Arkansas, who, like Rhodes and Wallace, applied for the draft after his junior year. Unlike Rhodes and Wallace, Thurman decided there was no turning back to school. Thurman, a 6-6 sharpshooter who hit a backbreaking 3-pointer in the final minute of the 1994 NCAA championship game against Duke, went undrafted. The Razorbacks could have used his outside shooting in what has turned out to be a difficult transitional season in Fayetteville.

The rap on Thurman: In a 3-D world, he has only one dimension, and it isn't playing D. He could have worked on his deficiencies with another season at Arkansas. Instead, he's stuck in CBA purgatory with the Shreveport Storm, who signed him in December after he was released by Sioux Falls.

"Red Auerbach -- I think he's pretty smart -- once told me, `Players are going to play X number of years in the NBA,'" Boeheim says. "It makes a lot of sense. I think you've got a certain number of years in the NBA. And going early doesn't mean you have an extra year. Nobody ever thinks about that.

"Isiah Thomas left early. If he would have stayed two more years at Indiana, he probably I would have played the same number of years (in the NBA). Just because you leave early doesn't mean you're going to play any longer or make any more money. If you're good, you're going to make the money anyway."

When John Wallace was too young to do anything besides wish he had some, he was more interested in football than basketball. He was -- and still is -- a Dallas Cowboys diehard, making him a western New York anomaly. As Wallace grew up, up, up he realized basketball could set him apart from the crowd. College coaches were taking note by the time Wallace was a sophomore at Rochester's Greece-Athena High School.

"It got to the point where I was thinking, `I can use basketball to get to college,'" says Wallace, who averaged 29 points, 15 rebounds and 6 blocks as a senior. "As much as my mother worked, it was hard to get to college with the money she was bringing in. I started putting in a lot of hours of basketball -- no more hanging out with my friends or nothing. Just basketball, basketball, basketball."

His mother had her jobs. Basketball was his.

"Yeah," Wallace says. "It's still my job."

Wallace led Syracuse in rebounding in each of his first three seasons while raising his scoring average from 11.1 to 15.0 to 16.8. Still, Lawrence Moten was always the focal point on offense. Wallace was an efficient post-up player, shooting 59 percent from the field as a junior, with a questionable jump shot. He shot 17 3-pointers and made only four in his first three seasons.

"I was always arguing for him to come back based on the fact he needed to prove himself," Boeheim says. "I think every college player who goes out and is successful has been the dominant player on his team. John was not a dominant player here. I told him, `You need to 2 show you,re a dominant player.'"

Nevertheless, Wallace insisted on at least dangling his feet in NBA waters. He worked out for about 10 teams without finding one that would commit to making him a lottery pick. NBA executives implored him to polish his outside shot.

"They pretty much told me the same thing: If you do come out, you'll be like a top 15 pick," Wallace says. "When this whole thing started, I was considered an early second-round pick. I figured that if I took a whole year, why couldn't I move Up to top 5 status?"

The day Wallace announced his return, he vowed to be "a completely different player." He spent the summer working with a personal trainer, doing drills, working on his shot, finding pick-up games. The payoff: an offensive repertoire that blends the ability to score from outside (28-of-68, or 41 percent, from behind the arc) while causing havoc inside (7.8 free-throw attempts per game).

Wallace finished the regular season fifth on the Syracuse career scoring list. He is the only player besides 76ers forward Derrick Coleman to lead the Orangemen in rebounding four consecutive seasons. In Boeheim's opinion, Wallace has emerged as a hybrid between Coleman and the Kings, Billy Owens, another Syracuse product. Coleman was a more dominant inside force at Syracuse, Owens a more accomplished runner and ballhandler.

"John is a little bit better shooter than both those guys at this stage," Boeheim says. "But he has now elevated himself into that comparison with those guys. Before, he wasn't really comparable to those guys.

He has a pro game. He can go inside. He can go outside. He could grow into a power forward who can play outside, and those guys are very valuable."

"He's as good as they make him out to be," Alabama center Roy Rogers says. "By far, he's the toughest player I've faced all year."

Why, Wallace has even toned clown the on-court woofing reminiscent of another Syracuse player who wore No. 44--Coleman. Perhaps having a 2-year-old son, John III, sped up the maturing process.

"The overriding thing is he has taken charge of the team and been a leader," Boeheim says. "Everybody on the team realizes it's John's team, and he's the guy. That's just a necessary step for him -- and for us to be a good team. He has wanted the ball. He has made plays."

Leventhal projected Wallace as a late first-round pick -- anywhere from 20th to 29th -- last year. He ranks Wallace third among the 1996 senior class and 11th overall. The timing is right for Wallace because he has made the most of the time that he has had.

"Some people come back and remain the same type of player," Wallace says. "I was determined that I was coming back to be a completely different player. I think I've accomplished that."

Shortly after Rodrick Rhodes headed for the left coast, he got a tattoo on his left arm. It reads, "Everything happens for a reason."

"Maybe," Rhodes says "this was a lesson in disguise."

After three years of unmet expectations at Kentucky, Rhodes welcomes the opportunity to he incognito. Rhodes decided USC -- in all its Tailback U. glory -- was his kind of place shortly after he arrived on campus. While visiting with Trojans receiver Keyshawn Johnson at the end of football practice one day, Rhodes spotted a kid approaching for an autograph.

"Being at Kentucky so long." Rhodes says. "I'm thinking this kid is going to ask me for an autograph."

Instead, the object of desire turned out to be Johnson. After Johnson signed, the kid turned to Rhodes and asked, "Are you a football player?" Rhodes admitted he wasn't, prompting the kid to leave in disappointment.

"It was kind of funny, but at the same time, that's what I wanted -- that humbleness, that surrounding, that not always being looked up at as a basketball player," Rhodes says. "I think that's what this whole situation did to me. Instead of being hunted, being the hunter."

While Rhodes regrouped, Kentucky soared to No. 1 in the rankings and breezed through the SEC schedule unbeaten. It's not the first time he has been humbled since coming out of high school as a Parade and McDonald's All-American.

"I was my biggest critic," says Rhodes, a high school teammate of NBA guards Terry Dehere and Bobby Hurley. "Even when I had a good game, I saw something bad. That's because I was taught that at St. Anthony: Never be satisfied."

Rhodes remembers missing two key free throws against Arkansas late in the title game of the 1995 SEC Tournament. Although the Wildcats won in overtime, Rhodes couldn't stop himself from crying afterward.

"If we lost, then I would have all the reason to cry because I lost the game." Rhodes says. "But we won. I had so many high expectations on me ... I didn't want to cut the nets down because I felt I wasn't a part of it. The crowd cheered me on and made me do it."

Rhodes never averaged more than 14.6 points or 4.1 rebounds with Kentucky. Supposed lesser lights have shot past Rhodes in college basketball's pecking order. The future became even more muddled with the midseason firing of coach Charlie Parker, who had called Rhodes "the best recruit we've had at USC in my eight years here." Another coach -- assistant Henry Bibby took over on an interim basis -- might have different ideas about Rhodes.

"My who]e feeling -- it goes back to Coach Pitino, because I still remember great quotes of things he used to say -- is: That's adult business: let adults handle that," Rhodes says. "Yeah, it will affect me, so it is my business. But I'm kind of stuck. What, an; I going to transfer again? I'm here. So I'll let the adults handle that."

The NBA dream isn't dead, just deferred. By returning to school, Rhodes bought another chance at a breakthrough year.

"A lot of people look at it and say, `Rhodes, he's a kid who fell off" or `He didn't do what he was supposed to do.'" Rhodes says. "I don't think I fell off. It was just that with the era of kids coming out early -- the (Rasheed) Wallaces and Stackhouses of the world, that's what people expected me to be. So when I wasn't that, it's like, `He failed.,

"In reality, how did I fail? I'm going to get my degree, and I'm still going to have a shot at the NBA. And I want to turn this program around. I want it to be more than just a football school. Those are the expectations I'm putting on myself. I want this to be known as a basketball school -- not Tailback U."

If Wallace finishes school, he will become the second member of the extended family to get a degree.

"Oh, I told him what to do," says Vanessa Wallace, who had a scholarship to Howard but was unable to go because she had to attend to her sick mother and three-month-old John. "I told him I thought it was best if he would go back and get his degree."

She told him, all right. She just didn't know if her voice could be heard above the one within her son's head.

"I was really surprised," Vanessa Wallace says. "A lot of guys come out of school early, and when it's over with the ball, they have nothing to fall back on. At least John has something to fall back on. And he can be a role model for his brothers and his son--let them know that if he was successful, they can be. too."

RELATED ARTICLE: Scotty's not beaming

Afternoon in Boosier City, La. A ringing phone in a hotel room that will be home as long as there is a Continental Basketball Association season. A game to play that night. Scotty Thurman has been better.

"I'm trying to get some sleep," Thurman snaps at his caller.

When might be a good time to talk?

"Not today." Grrrr.

Tomorrow. perhaps?

"We're leaving for Omaha (Neb.) early in the morning." Grrrr. Grrrr.

Is there any time you might suggest?

"Got to get some sleep now." Click.

At this time a year ago, Thurman was getting ready to help the Arkansas Razorbacks to their second consecutive NCAA championship game. Thurman. who made a crucial 3-pointer late in the 1994 title game bypassed his senior season to apply for the NBA draft last spring.

Undrafted, the 6-6 Thurman tried out with the New Jersey Nets and was cut. He played one game with the CBA's Sioux Falls SkyForce. who drafted him in the fourth round before releasing him. He finally caught on with the Shreveport Storm, just down the road from Ruston, La., his high school stomping grounds.

"He just wasn't ready," draft analyst Don Leventhal says. "He's very one-dimensional. There are things he needed to work on. You look at Arkansas now. Thurman would have been a total star on this team this year. No Corliss Williamson -- Scotty Thurman's The Man. He could spend some time working on creating a shot, improving his handle. The timing would have been much better for him to come back this year where he would have been The Man and had the opportunity to show more."

Playing alongside the likes of Tracy Moore, Anthony Dade Shon Tarver and Roger Crawford, a former teammate at Arkansas, Thurman is a bit player on a two-bit team. Forty-eight games into the season. the Storm had the CBA's worst record (14-34). In 36 games with Shreveport, Thurman was averaging 7.6 points, 2 rebounds and 1.7 assists in 20.6 minutes per game.

Thurman was a sharpshooter in college. He's a 39-percent shooter in the CBA. Though Thurman insists, "the same people who ask the questions would have done the same thing," Arkansas Coach Nolan Richardson can,t help but wonder what might have been.

"Scotty Thurman on this team," says Richardson, whose club finished the regular season 17-11, "would make this one heck of a team."

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