He didn’t host a lavish post-NBA draft party at Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club, and he wasn’t even at Madison Square Garden for the biggest moment of his career.
Instead the former Cardozo standout sat at a friend’s…
It all seemed to happen in true Royal Ivey form.
He didn’t host a lavish post-NBA draft party at Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club, and he wasn’t even at Madison Square Garden for the biggest moment of his career.
Instead the former Cardozo standout sat at a friend’s house in Austin, Texas as he heard his name called as the Atlanta Hawks’ second-round draft pick.
That’s right, the kid who was cut as a sophomore at Cardozo was an NBA draft pick.
And in true Royal Ivey form, the fact he was picked 37th overall was largely ignored. It was largely passed over by the New York City tabloids, which continued to ride the Sebastian Telfair hype machine.
Not that Telfair doesn’t deserve the attention. After all, the much ballyhooed cousin of Stephon Marbury and newest Adidas spokesman was a lottery pick, selected 11th overall by the Portland Trail Blazers.
But that’s nothing new to Royal Ivey. He’s always played in the shadows of flashier players.
He was cut his sophomore year at Cardozo and after playing second fiddle to Brian Woodward for much of his junior and senior years, Ivey was named MVP of the PSAL city championship game largely because of his stifling defense on John F. Kennedy’s Willie Shaw.
But Ivey was still in the background. JFK’s J.C. Mathis garnered much of the post-season honors from the local publications, Willie Shaw chose St. John’s and Lincoln’s Eric King was the star on the rise.
Even on the Cardozo championship team, Woodward was still the man, and Tremayne Singletary and Ryan Williams were the forwards who provided the crowd-pleasing dunks.
In fact, Ivey first drew the attention of former Texas assistant coach Rob Lanier while at Cardozo when Lanier came to recruit Woodward.
Ivey drew the interest of a couple of mid-major Division I colleges, such as Marist and Northwestern, but he opted to head to Blair Academy for a year of seasoning instead.
There, playing alongside Charlie Villanueva and Luol Deng, Ivey’s stock slowly began to rise. But even when Texas coach Rick Barnes expressed an interest, Royal’s father, Rod, could hardly believe it.
“My son isn’t that good,” he told Barnes that day.
Expected to be a bench player who earned limited minutes, Ivey started as a freshman at Texas and didn’t leave the starting lineup for the rest of his four years in Austin.
For the first time in his life he started at point guard, then moved to shooting guard when T.J. Ford arrived and back to point guard when Ford bolted early for the NBA.
But not once did Ivey complain. He just did what he always did — he worked his butt off and played defense, shutting down some of college basketball’s top guards.
And despite a stellar collegiate career, Ivey wasn’t projected to be an NBA draft pick. Odds were that the St. Albans native would go undrafted but have a good shot at making a team in the NBA’s summer league in Boston.
But there was Ivey, the guy who just plays defense and works hard and who shut down first-rounders Ben Gordon, Shaun Livingston and Devin Harris in pre-draft workouts, getting picked before Duke’s Chris Duhon among others who surely had jazzier credentials.
He did so quietly, so quietly that his father, Rod, slept through his selection while his brother attended his high school prom and mother attended a party.
It was the beginning of his senior year at Cardozo when I first interviewed Royal Ivey. It was a Friday night in December in a hallway at Campus Magnet.
Having followed his career closely ever since, it brought me a great bit of joy and satisfaction to see his name picked in the NBA draft, for Atlanta general manager Billy Knight to see in the soft-spoken defensive specialist what I saw some six years ago.
The odds are once again stacked against Ivey. Only five players picked in last year’s second round remained with their respective clubs at the end of the year.
Sounds like Royal Ivey is ready for a successful NBA career to me.
Reach Sports Editor Dylan Butler by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 143.
