IN 1995, Stephon Marbury's senior year at Lincoln High School, he was acutely inclined to skip college and become the first 6-foot playmaker to apply for the NBA draft.
The unconscious majority mocked that notion when presented in this space.
One year later, he was drafted No. 4 by the Bucks, nine picks before Charlotte chose Kobe Bryant.
Kobe's booming evolution provided the impulsion for the schoolboy gold rush that continues to this day, but Marbury could've/should've been the contemporary Moses Malone frontiersman.
Yeah, right, like it was freshman year at Georgia Tech that prepared Steph for the pros, where he averaged 15.8 points and 7.8 assists as a Timberwolves rookie.
Believe me, league talent scouts were positive Marbury - though ultimately unwilling (i.e. talked out of it) - was ready and able the year before.
Just as they know for sure Sebastian Telfair, Marbury's cousin ("his mother's mother is my mother's sister," Steph explains) is capable of making a textbook transition from yellow buses to chartered planes.
"The kid's a definite lottery pick!" attests an Eastern Conference GM against the glaring wishes of commissioner David Stern, who forbids team executives and coaches to discuss high-school players publicly.
"I love his understanding of the game. He sees the floor, makes great decisions and is poised beyond his years. Sebastian isn't nearly as athletic or explosive as Steph, but he shoots better at a comparative age."
The same GM, whose rag-bag team is lottery bound, was one of 30 team execs to catch Telefair's cosmic act last month at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion; he's convinced Sebastian can competently run an NBA squad.
"If he's there, I'm taking him!" he said.
This isn't, by far, an isolated opinion. Hate to be the one to drop bad news on Rick Pitino's doorstep, but there's not a single Sebastian dissenter out there. If you crave expert eyes of the cutter, the pair belonging to Telfair will be the best available in this June's shallow draft dominated by foreigners and teenagers.
Georgia prep pin-up Dwight Howard, a 6-10 forward, already is the consensus lock to be the pick of the litter. No wonder the Hawks are asking for sky-high draft picks in trade packages involving Shareef Abdur-Rahim.
Truth is, none of the above can be news to Pitino, Louisville's head coach. He's too wired into how favorably his prized recruit is being judged by the NBA to be even vaguely surprised.
Additionally, Slick Rick has been around the block in reverse a few times; he's too aware of the temptations Telfair is facing (accepting?) on an hourly basis to think the kid can resist (or keep it on the down low) much longer, much less forego roughly $9 million guaranteed for three seasons as a mid-range lottery choice.
Marbury needlessly delayed his NBA baptism a year, it says here. Nine years later, it's Telfair chance to become the first 6-foot point guard to go straight from high school to a profitable pro career, something, by all accounts, that's deeply appealing to him.
No way Telfair will say no. No way Marbury will let him. That goes double for Marbury's mother and her sister, Sebastian's grandmother, in other words. Especially after they get a whiff of the following quote.
"If I had Telfair today," a Western Conference coach recently asserted, "I could beat the Kings tonight."
