Three days into the latest swerve of his curlicue basketball career, Patrick Beverley galloped across a Ukrainian gym floor. Regrettably, he left the ball behind as he reached halfcourt. This precipitated an outburst, and that outburst precipitated a needle-off-the-record moment.

Beverley had cursed. In perfect Russian.

"Practice came to a screeching halt," said Bob Donewald Jr., the coach of Beverley's club team, BC Dnipro. "I turned to my assistant and said, 'What did he say?' He said, 'He said, Aw, [shoot].' The team kind of broke up."

As surprising developments go, Beverley ideally would top that Thursday. If he hears his name during the NBA draft, he will have zig-zagged to that milepost by way of Marshall High School via a controversy-tainted stint at Arkansas via one year spent in Dnipropetrovsk, a steel industry center with a TGI Friday's but little basketball relevance.


Beverley, 20, hopes teams searched far enough to unearth a 6-foot-1-inch jitterbug who can score and defend two positions and who worked to become a reliable point guard. And, in theory, who lived and learned enough where his potential isn't measured by Geiger counter.

"It's definitely been a long journey," Beverley said. "Nothing was ever, ever given to me. I definitely had to work harder for everything I got. I'm just like, man, I'm very thankful. But I'm going to continue to work hard and stay on the grind."

He says this just after finishing a two-hour morning workout, the day after a workout with the Detroit Pistons, one of more than a dozen overall. His agent, Bernie Lee, said information points to Beverley being drafted -- just no one is quite sure when.

But then Beverley never played AAU ball, committed to Toledo then backed off, had a dalliance with Illinois, wound up at Arkansas, became SEC Freshman of the Year, left school in 2008 after handing in a paper a tutor wrote for him, then spent a year learning how to run a team and swear in Russian.

What's another odyssey?

"You have to start somewhere," Beverley said.

Maybe it was best for Beverley to toil in obscurity. Competition-wise, Ukrainian basketball isn't among the world's elite, but it is physical, filled with grown men.

And it offers unlimited time to work. On practice days, Beverley shot for two hours every morning, then lifted and practiced again in the evening. He drilled footwork and decision-making, knowing full well that would determine his NBA destiny.

"We broke down every possible drive the kid would make at any angle, and the reads for that," Donewald said. "Is it going to be a drop-off at the basket? Should it be a pull-up? Should it be a kick to the far corner? Everything imaginable in terms of NBA spacing and reads, we drilled it."

Beverley averaged 16.7 points per game on 48 percent shooting with BC Dnipro, according to eurobasket.com. He earned 2009 Eurocamp MVP in Treviso, Italy, earlier this month. Whether that is convincing enough remains to be seen.

"He'll make somebody's team as third point guard, a junkyard-dog-type player," ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla said. "A lot of guys in league stay there a long time because of toughness and intensity and the ability to do what coaches ask."

Added ESPN analyst Jay Bilas: "I bet if you locked all the projected second-round picks in a room, he'd be the guy that came out. He's tougher than nails. He will not fail. He'll find his way onto a roster."

Beverley's disposition indeed never has been the question.

He stayed in contact with Arkansas coaches after departing. Before swear words, he'd learned to ask his Ukrainian teammates how they were doing in equally flawless Russian.

"Everything happens for a reason," Beverley said. "I'm fully responsible for what happened with the paper [at Arkansas], but I'm more happy to put that behind me and look at the future.

"I've definitely learned from my mistakes, and it's definitely helped me and forced me to mature a lot and be a man and be accountable for everything I do, positive or negative."

For the draft, Beverley will gather with a small group of friends and family in Chicago. Before that, he'll work out by himself. He won't take a day off. He says he can't.



source : http://www.chicagotribune.com