Steve Kelley / Times staff columnist
Future is now for young players in NBA

	JEFF T. GREEN / AP Rookie guard Luke Ridnour brings the ball up the floor for the Sonics in his NBA debut Saturday against Portland.
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In the new NBA, its most anticipated rookie is just months removed from his high school's senior prom.

In the new NBA, a first-round Sonics draft pick is three years past his big win over Wapato in the Class AA state-championship game.

And in the new NBA, Rashard Lewis, who just turned 24, is considered a veteran, the Sonics' team captain, a player the "younger" players go to for advice.

"It's strange to see such a young group," Sonics coach Nate McMillan said.

The league is getting younger. Most of the superstars are in their mid-20s. Some of the most celebrated rookies still are teenagers.

In the new NBA, the kids get it faster. Sure they still oscillate between tranquility and destruction. They can be fire and they can be ice. But the great ones are learning faster and arriving quicker.

Baby-faced ballplayers with serious bona fides are coming into the league, carrying the weight of big contracts and huge expectations. Like some fast-forwarding time machine, the NBA is turning over its game to the kids.

"The league is much more evolved than when I came out," said McMillan, who was a 22-year-old rookie in 1986. "Our league, right now, really is a collegiate league. We don't have a lot of (Karl) Malones and (Gary) Paytons around anymore.

"You can hold on to guys like Malone a little longer because they're so good, but guys such as Derrick McKey and Dana Barros, they're out of the league now. Owners are turning to younger players who have less than 10 years experience, so they don't have to pay that million-dollar deal. It makes the league younger."

Cleveland wunderkind rookie LeBron James is asked about the last time he fouled out of a game. He remembers an AAU game when he was in ninth grade. That game was just four years ago.

And Luke Ridnour, Sonics rookie point guard, is asked about one of his favorite basketball memories. It was his high school's first state championship win, also only four years ago.

The kids are coming rapidly. One class after the other.

"Luke looks like he just came off the high-school varsity bus," McMillan said. "You look at him and I'm not even sure Luke has any facial hair. He looks like a kid. He really does, but he's very confident. In two or three years, that guy could be special.

"I think it's going to be fun for the guys to play with him. He'll get everyone involved. His style of play makes a team come together because he doesn't have a favorite. He'll deliver the ball to anybody at any time. He is a true point. He'll make guys better."

Darwin would have loved the NBA. The game proves his point. It is evolving rapidly. Players are bigger, stronger, faster, younger.

Many of the superstars — Tracy McGrady, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant — never went to college. They grew their games in the 20,000-seat hothouses of the NBA.

"The monumental shift is just in the conscience of these kids," said Brent Barry, the Sonics' 31-year-old point guard. "They've seen the success that some of these kids have had, so that gives them the confidence that if they have the opportunity to play at this level, they can do it."

It has become the league of streetball, PlayStation and GameCube. It is the league of Ludacris and Pink.

Ridnour comes to the Sonics with no feeling that he's a babe in the woods. Barry is the only teammate over 30. The rest are kids not much older than Ridnour with the same interests and the same CDs.

"The funny thing to me is you've got guys coming into the league earlier and earlier, so when they come into the league they have more in common with the guys that are already on the team," Barry said. "It's not like you're coming into the league as a 19-year-old and you've got five 35-year-olds on the team.

"If you're 19, you've got 22-year-olds. You have young guys who hang out and do the same things you do. They show you the ropes and they communicate with you on a different level."

Barry grew up in the game. His father, Rick, is a Hall of Famer. His brother Jon preceded him into the league. Still, he freely admits, he wasn't even close to being ready when he was James' or Ridnour's age.

"I needed all the years I could get in college," Barry said. "I needed all the experience I could get. Physically, I just wasn't ready. I definitely wasn't ready, but more and more you're seeing these kids who are. For the guys who can handle it, it's impressive.

"There are a lot of things playing into it. When I was growing up, the summer basketball stuff really wasn't all that important. Now it's huge. It's a year-round process. And there's so much more emphasis on lifting weights and getting your body ready to go. It's evolution. These kids were made to play the game."

In the new NBA, the kids are its present as well as its future.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com

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