Breaking News: JaVale McGee Enters Draft, Hires Agent Roosevelt Barnes

JaVale McGee has decided to jump head first into this year’s NBA draft, by hiring an agent and nullifying his remaining college eligibility, McGee confirmed to DraftExpress today. McGee is a 7-foot, long, skilled and athletic 237 pound center from Nevada who averaged 14 points, 7.3 rebounds and 2.8 blocks in this, his breakout sophomore season. When asked what made him decide to enter the draft so quickly, McGee said that he “wanted to get it off my mind and start working hard.” He stated that his mother had been talking to “NBA GMs” recently, and they informed her that McGee would be drafted from the “late lottery to 20” portion of the draft, which in his words, “sounds about right” and “can’t get any better.”

McGee made the interesting decision to sign with one of the top agents in the NFL draft, Eugene Parker*, a former basketball standout at Purdue and 5th round NBA draft pick in 1978 by the San Antonio Spurs, who made a name for himself representing top football players such as Emmitt Smith, Deion Sanders, Ray Lewis, and many others. McGee stated that Parker is not just a top NFL agent, but is one of the “top agents amongst all agents,” and confirmed that he expects him to be helpful on the marketing side of things in particular.

Parker is currently not listed as being a certified NBA agent in the most recent Players Association Agent Listing, and did not immediately respond to multiple phone messages seeking comment Saturday afternoon. The NBPA certification process typically takes 8-12 weeks, although an uncertified agent can advise the player, talk to teams and marketing groups on his behalf, and only needs to be officially certified by the day of the NBA draft.

Most executives DraftExpress spoke with over the past few weeks had McGee firmly slated as a first round pick, with some even going as far as to rate him as a potential late lottery selection. He is an extremely raw prospect physically and experience-wise, but is considered to have great upside due to his combination of size, athleticism, length, and budding skills facing the basket. After the Elite Eight we will provide an up-to-date in-depth scouting report, as we recently acquired a number of games of his from February and March.

*Update: DraftExpress was informed by agent Paul Lawrence of Eugene Parker’s agency Maximum Sports that McGee will actually be represented by Roosevelt Barnes, who is Parker’s partner in the firm, and not Parker himself. We apologize for the error.