No one comes calling for Rebel forward Nesby

Steve Carp

Thursday, June 25, 1998 | 10:43 a.m.

It was supposed to be the greatest night of his life. But it may well have been Tyrone Nesby's worst.

The UNLV 6-foot-6 small forward expected to be taken in Wednesday's NBA draft. At the very worst, he'd go somewhere in the early stages of the second round. And the way people were talking, there was a likelihood he'd go in the middle-to-late first round.

But as the names were called, Nesby never heard his. Before he knew it, 58 names had been called and he was on the outside looking in.

What happened? How did a guy whose stock had gone from virtually nil to being a rising star suddenly fall off the face of the earth?

"Your guess is as good as mine," Nesby said from Bloomington, Ill., where he, his family and his friends suffered through four hours of agony Wednesday. "I thought I had a good chance to get picked, at least in the second round.

"I thought I did a lot at the camps. I played against a lot of these guys and I outdid a lot of them. I'm upset, but I'm not going to kill myself. You just gotta be prepared for stuff like this. But I was trippin' for a minute there."

Nesby had every reason to believe the Indiana Pacers were going to take him with the 25th pick overall. He had talked to the team as late as Wednesday morning. And when players such as Matt Harpring and Bryce Drew were taken well ahead of Indiana's pick, it bolstered the notion that Nesby was going to be playing for his idol, Larry Bird.

Instead, the Pacers opted to take untested high schooler Al Harrington. That had Nesby trippin'.

"I didn't understand that one," he said.

And when the Los Angeles Lakers and Utah Jazz passed on Nesby toward the end of the first round, he was confident he'd go sometime in round two. But he was passed over for the likes of Jerome Jones, Bruno Sundov and Torraye Braggs, not to mention more familiar names like the UCLA trio of Jelani McCoy, Toby Bailey and J.R. Henderson as well as Fresno State's Rafer Alston and Tremaine Fowlkes.

"When you do way better than those guys (in the camps), you like to think you'll get picked," Nesby said with a tinge of bitterness.

Now, he faces the long shot prospect of trying to make an NBA team as a free agent. He's headed to New Orleans to stay in shape while his agent, Cedric Smith, tries to make the best deal possible.

"I didn't want to be in that position," Nesby said. "That's why I went to the camps (in Phoenix and Chicago) and went to the workouts. I thought I had helped myself."

And while he's disappointed for himself, he was happy for his former college teammate, Keon Clark. The 6-11 center went to the Orlando Magic as the 13th pick overall.

"I talked to Keon and he's very happy to be going to Orlando," Nesby said. "It's a very good situation for him. With everything he went through, I'm glad everything worked out for him."

As for himself, Nesby said he's not giving up on his dream.

"I'm cool," he said. "You just gotta be prepared for stuff like this. I got to hang in there and I can't let this affect me. I'm just gonna move forward."