Rod Strickland remembers his walk across the grand stage of the N.B.A. draft in June 1988. He had left DePaul after three years and was looking forward to a long-awaited career as an N.B.A. player. “I was anxious; I remember being real nervous,” said Strickland, a former New York City high school star who is now on the basketball staff at Kentucky. “It was just the idea of playing junior high school, high school, college and then to finally be in that situation where you’re going to get drafted — having a feel for where you might go, but it’s still an unknown.” On Thursday night, the N.B.A.’s new rookies will wait to hear their names called. They will rejoice, then walk across the stage, don the caps of their new teams and shake hands with Commissioner David Stern.
Walter Cornett, of Glendale, Kentucky, is the owner and operator of Walter’s Wildcat World. He founded WildcatWorld.com in 1998 making it one of the oldest Kentucky basketball fan sites in operation today.