In the spring, NBA insiders told Bob Huggins his point guard Kenny Satterfield wasn't ready to be a pro. He wasn't strong enough, they said. He needed to work on his jump shot. Tell him to come back next year.

        Huggins did. The coach says Satterfield nodded. Yes. It wasn't what the sophomore wanted to hear. But Satterfield trusted his coach. Unlike others filling Satterfield's head with noise, Huggins had no financial interest in Satterfield's basketball career.

        Then something happened. Satterfield heard other voices. They all do. Every player with an NBA dream wants good news. Even when it's a lie. We don't know why Satterfield didn't listen to Huggins or the NBA. But it's an easy guess.

        “Come out now,” an agent might have said. “Jason Williams is staying at Duke. Frank Williams isn't leaving Illinois. You could be the first point guard taken.”

        I ran that theory past Huggins.

        “You could do their job,” he said.

        The nonsense filled Satterfield. So
did the constant back-and-forth between Satterfield and his peers. Players from different areas of the country didn't used to talk much. Now, that's all they do. The cell-phone patter — two-way pagers, 800 numbers, to and fro — reinforced the popular notion that if you stay in school, you are a chump.

Making a mistake

        So Satterfield left UC. He left even though his grades were decent, even as his family told him to do what he wanted, they'd get by without his money. Even though it didn't make much sense.

        It's easy to say Satterfield made a mistake. Today, two days after he was the 54th pick out of 58 in the NBA draft, he'd probably say the same thing.

        But we do not criticize 17-year-olds who go from high school graduation to pitching for money in Princeton, W.Va. We don't scorn 14-year-old Tracy Austin for playing tennis at the U.S. Open or the parade of pre-adolescents winning gymnastic gold at the Olympics, so we will not condemn Satterfield for wanting to make a living.

        We'll wonder, though, about the motives of agents and “friends” who trade in false hope and ego gratification and not in what's right.

Agent's thoughts?

        We don't know what Satterfield's agent, Dan Fegan, or Fegan's associate, former UC assistant Rod Baker, said to convince Satterfield he was a first-round pick. (We won't know today, either; they didn't return multiple phone calls.) Maybe nothing. Maybe each got down on bended knee and begged Satt to stay in school.

        But here's a deal: The next time an agent sweet-talks a gullible college kid into entering a draft he's not ready for, make the agent pay the kid a first-round wage if he slips out of Round 1. Make the agent make up the difference between fiction and fact.

        He can't give the player back his college eligibility, or the sweet irresponsibility of being a big man on campus. But maybe if selling a kid fantasies in the name of making a few bucks actually cost an agent a few bucks, the agent might think twice.

        Satterfield is stuck. He's accountable, sure. It was his decision. It's his life. He was a kid grappling with an adult's decision, and this is how it came out. It would be nice if the adults pulling the strings had considered him as much as their bank accounts.

        E-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/daugherty.

Satterfield would be better off undrafted DAUGHERTY: Satterfield's advisers should pay

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