The King of East St. Louis
Page 2 Q walks first, a magazine coverboy many times over and lottery lock had he bounced to the Show last year. He’s the hometown hero with the one-letter name, and he’s pretty sure heads are turning to look at him, not at his apprentice looming behind him. But people are stopping to look at the Panther. They want to see the high schooler everybody’s been talking about. They want to meet him, shake his hand, have their kid’s picture taken with him, while Q is left alone to talk to Murray State’s Aubrey Reese until Darius is done. What Q doesn’t realize is that Darius isn’t following him. Instead, without really knowing it, Q is heralding Darius’s arrival. Q is clearing the way for the boy prince of the NBA to make his way through the crowd. NBA royalty, the next in line, has arrived. That Wednesday night in Minneapolis, camera crews swarmed around Darius Miles and his family as the Los Angeles Clippers announced they had made him the third selection in the draft – the highest ever for a high school baller. He rose from the table to meet the Commissioner, his suit and his mother Ethel clinging from his skeletal, 6-foot-7 frame. He gladly accepted the Clippers cap and placed it on his cornrow-swirled head; a crown hardly worthy of the child who had set the NBA on its ear. So enamored was the NBA with Miles, teams like the Orlando Magic were willing to sell the farm just to have a shot at landing him. Scouts from around the league drooled at his build and his skills. One scout from the Mavericks marveled a few weeks before draft day: "Let me tell you, he is a big-time athlete. He’s so raw and so young, but he completely dominates games with his athleticism alone. He runs the floor like nobody we’ve seen for a long time." After playing pick-up ball with him a few times during the season, Michael Jordan let it be known more than once it would be a no-brainer to snatch Miles with the #1 pick if it had belonged to the Wizards. "I would do it in a second," MJ told reporters. "I wouldn’t think twice about it." ***
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