"Dwight, you gonna do it?" Zachary Wallace asks.
"Dwight" is Dwight Howard II, the best high school basketball player in the country, currently crammed into a chair in a west Atlanta barbershop. Wallace, a family friend, is posing the same question the 6-foot-11 18-year-old has heard from dozens of interrogators over the past six months: Will Howard bypass college and go directly to the NBA?
Howard has just finished yet another phone interview with a newspaper, although he's not sure exactly what paper it was. He thinks the paper was from Chicago, although Samuel Thompson — like Wallace a longtime family friend — insists it was the New York Times.
That morning at church, Howard had listened to a sermon on the "secret sin" of pride, a discourse that included a brief reflection on the success of Howard's Southwest Atlanta Christian Academy basketball team.
"I'm just as shocked as everyone else is," the pastor had said. "Where did they come from, how did they do it? Hey, the power of God."
The sermon didn't mention Howard by name. But the congregants — who quickly corrected the pastor when he misstated SACA's record — know which player was responsible for the national tournament invitations, the ESPN2 appearance. Many of them have heard that Howard is a certain top-three NBA draft pick, that he will possibly be the third high school player — after Kwame Brown and LeBron James — to be chosen No. 1 overall. Many of them, in fact, were at SACA's playoff game the previous night, when Howard showed off the combination of strength, size, athletic skills and ball-handling ability that attracted all the attention in the first place.
Howard never answers Wallace's barbershop query, although he doesn't really need to. He's already told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that it would be nearly impossible to turn down the NBA if he would be a top-three pick. Later, he smiles and hesitates when asked which colleges he's still considering.
Howard says his choice will be guided by God, and that he expects to make a final decision within a few weeks. He's already willing to describe his professional goals, which include "having God reign in the NBA" and integrating a cross into the NBA logo, possibly in the middle of Jerry West's chest.
Family friends say that Howard remains humble and grounded, the same fun-loving Dwight they've always known. They say that whenever Howard reaches the NBA, he will lift up the league, purify its image, be a role model for youth and adults. They say that if the Ping-Pong balls fall right, Howard could do for the hometown Atlanta Hawks what James has done for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
NBA Commissioner David Stern has talked of a minimum age rule, and several of Howard's adult friends and mentors — including SACA Coach Courtney Brooks — still speak fondly of a time when the best high school players went to college as a matter of course.
"To me, the NBA, it's a job," says Brooks, who played at Georgia State in the early 1990s. "Go to a UCLA game or a Georgia game — the kids are up, they're hollering, their faces are painted. That's a great atmosphere for basketball to be played in. You're not going to get that in the NBA, you're just not going to get that."
And yet Brooks asks the same rhetorical question that stops the rest of Howard's friends and advisers: How can you tell a responsible, intelligent young man, a Student Government Association co-president, to turn down a chance at realizing his dream while getting paid millions of dollars?
During SACA's appearance on ESPN2 in late January, analysts Fran Fraschilla and Len Elmore spent much of the second half promulgating that very theory, that Howard should put his professional dreams on hold and go to college.
Despite the same double- and triple-teams he has faced in every game this year, Howard finished that contest with 25 points, 10 rebounds and 4 blocks. But he fouled out with 1 minute 19 seconds left, and SACA suffered its first loss of the season.
"[Howard] absolutely, absolutely could benefit from the college game," Elmore said after Howard fouled out.
Howard watched the telecast, listened to the comments. Now, sitting in his barber's chair, laughing at the "Rush Hour" antics of Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan on a corner television, Howard offers a rare dose of soft-spoken gravity.
"I heard a lot of stuff they were saying, I heard everything they said," he recalls. "It's hard, you get triple-teamed every night. The people who were commentating, they were in the age where people went to college first. I can understand where they're coming from, but [talk of the NBA] just comes along with playing basketball these days.
"Today it's all about finding the next LeBron. They're just looking at high schoolers as superheroes. They don't feel how I feel because they're not in my shoes. They just see me on the outside and pass judgments, they don't know me personally. They've only seen me one time.
"I really don't concern myself with what people say. They're not in the position I am; they don't know what it feels like to be put in the spotlight. I don't know if they'd know how to handle it — getting interviewed every day, not being able to concentrate in class because I'm thinking about what I'm going to do after high school."
But Howard says he isn't upset with Fraschilla and Elmore — he never gets angry, according to friends — and soon he's laughing again while talking on his cell phone and popping more strawberry-flavored Air Heads into his mouth.
The NBA All-Star Game is about to begin, but Howard says he isn't particularly interested in all-star games. He wants to leave the shop and go watch a movie somewhere. First, though, there's an autograph to sign; he goes to his car — a 1984 Crown Victoria — and retrieves a copy of his Dime Magazine cover shot, which he signs for 6-year-old O.J. Deadwyler. Towering Howard and tiny Deadwyler, closer in age than Howard and Shaquille O'Neal, pose for two photos.
The youngster says he isn't exactly sure who Howard is, but he hops around the shop, then offers his own analysis.
"I wish he was in the game right now," Deadwyler says.
He won't have to wait much longer.
A Rising Star
An oft-told tale has a young Howard including an NBA career in a list of life goals posted on his bedroom wall. His family tree helped fuel such goals: Six-foot-4 father Dwight Howard Sr., a Georgia state trooper and the athletic director at SACA, has been a track and basketball coach for 15 years; mother Sheryl played on the inaugural women's team at Morris Brown College; older sister TaShanda, who was close friends with future Atlanta Hawk Dion Glover in high school, was a 5-foot-10 center at Alcorn State and Fort Valley State. The third Howard sibling, youngest brother Jahaziel, is a growing 6-3 freshman at SACA, fond of wristbands and headbands, who softly says, "I think I can match what Dwight is doing in high school."
Howard has attended SACA since he was 4, like other students going to a devotion service every morning and taking Bible classes every semester. The school counts 70 high school students among its 306 pupils, including pre-schoolers and toddlers. But SACA lacked indoor athletic facilities until its gym opened in December 2002, and so for years students congregated around two rims on a converted tennis court, where the younger students, including Howard, were often left on the sidelines.
"He was so little, just like other little kids," Wallace, a former SACA student, remembers with a smile. "It was always 'I got next, can I get next?' and we would never let him play."
In a sixth-grade yearbook photo Howard was perhaps an inch or two taller than classmate John Pearson, but by the summer before high school he was 6-2, and within six months he had sprouted five more inches. His name began appearing on recruiting lists that year; during his sophomore season he wore size 18 sneakers, and after his junior year, when he averaged 20 points and 17 rebounds, the NBA talk crescendoed.
Howard earned lavish praise during last summer's circuit of skills camps and national Amateur Athletic Union tournaments, and the torrent of letters from colleges gradually slowed.
"One, two, three is always up for debate, but in July it became pretty clear that he was the number one [high school] guy," says one NBA Eastern Conference scout. The scout spoke on condition of anonymity; NBA front-office employees are prohibited from speaking publicly about high school players who have not officially entered the draft. "It was like it was a known fact — there's not much better than that."
Which yielded the current season, unlike any of the school's five previous basketball campaigns. The Warriors traveled to tournaments in Delaware and New Jersey and California and briefly entered USA Today's top 25 rankings, and Howard has been hounded for autographs every step of the way.
On Friday, the Warriors improved to 26-2 and advanced to their fourth straight state final four; next week, they will attempt to win their first state title. Howard has averaged 25 points, 18 rebounds and 8 blocks, and the ever-present cadre of NBA personnel officials continues to be impressed, saying Howard or University of Connecticut junior Emeka Okafor is likely to be the first overall selection this June.
"Body frame, potential of the frame, athleticism, knowledge of the game, instincts, visual awareness," gushes one Eastern Conference front-office executive, who has seen Howard play four times. "A potential star player."
Funny Business
Howard says he keeps up the constant patter of jokes and songs because "I don't like to see people sad," and his joking stands out as much to his teachers and peers as do his basketball skills.
"Goofy," says teammate and longtime friend Pearson.
"Silly," says junior point guard Darryl Slack.
"Goofy," says math and science teacher Tim Gant.
"Quite silly," says AP English and international studies teacher Patrice Francis.
"Goofy," says classmate Shayna Swinson.
"Silly," says SACA junior Brittany Flowers.
"Comical," offers Brooks, the coach and high school Bible teacher, when told that "silly" has already been spoken for.
They say more: that Howard is well-mannered and polite, a natural with young children, a disarming public speaker. That he offers the best advice to troubled friends, soothes tempers, makes sure everyone is included in schoolyard games. That he is an excellent student, takes Advanced Placement classes, is a critical reader, a natural leader. That nothing has changed since he appeared in Sports Illustrated, landed on the cover of Dime Magazine and attracted the ESPN2 crew to school.
"You would never think this boy would be so calm," says the barber, Harold A. Jewsome, whose father is an associate pastor at Howard's church.
For now, they all say, Howard acts like the teenager he is, quoting ad nauseum from his favorite movie ("Finding Nemo"), impersonating teachers and bursting into laughter if a teammate trips while running wind sprints during practice.
"When the world is expecting so much, he can come [to school] and show that he's still a little child," SACA registrar and family friend Archiette Watts says. "Let them keep their childhood, some of the foolishness ... Even though he's bigger than most adults, we know that he doesn't yet have the wisdom of a 35-year-old man."
After beatboxing in time to the ringing of a cell phone before an afternoon practice, Howard discusses the hype surrounding his final year of school. He tries not to read the articles that have been written about him, "because I don't want my head to get too big, to get my head in the clouds over what people are saying." He doesn't mind the attention, although he sometimes regrets not always being able to go out with his friends because his parents are so concerned about maintaining his image. He misses looking through the stacks of college mail and reading the recruiting letters, but he doesn't pine for the anonymity of the past.
"I don't even think how life would be without this," he says. "I just know that I'm the same person I was before I got to this level. I don't think anything's changed with how I treat people or how I act, off the court or on the court."
In an early February tournament in Trenton, N.J., SACA suffered its second setback, a disappointing three-point loss to Lincoln High, the Brooklyn school starring prep star Sebastian Telfair. In front of dozens of NBA onlookers, including Washington Wizards President of Basketball Operations Ernie Grunfeld, Telfair connected on a game-winning three-pointer with seconds to play, overshadowing Howard's 23-point, 19-rebound performance.
It was nearly 11 p.m., and the team hadn't yet eaten dinner. But after his interviews, Howard re-entered the court to sign sneakers, basketballs, T-shirts, ticket stubs, game programs and beach balls while posing for photographs and chatting with young fans.
His coach and father stood watching in the arena tunnel, then futilely summoned the young player to leave.
Howard kept signing as they smiled, turned and walked back up the tunnel.
