Bracing for the Future

It's the eleventh hour for Bracey Wright's fifteen minutes of fame. Will his stardom carry on out of the Hoosier state?\nMonths of working out, training and auditioning culminates Tuesday night in New York at the NBA Draft. The draft will be in Madison Square Garden and on ESPN at 6 p.m.\nWright plans to be in New York Tuesday, but feels waiting in the green room with the rest of the top prospects might be nerve-wracking.\n"(The draft) is all about who wants it more -- it is tough. This month and all these workouts determine where you go and what happens with you and it erases the last 15 years of basketball up to this point."\nThe 6-foot-3-inch guard from The Colony, Texas will be looking to become the first Hoosier since Jared Jefferies in 2002 to be drafted in the first round.\nAfter his last workout with the Cleveland Cavaliers Monday morning, one of a dozen or more team workouts he participated in, Wright said he has improved vastly since he left IU in April. \n"I learned a lot from a lot of different people and it was a positive experience for me and something I won't forget," he said. "When I first came out there was a lot I didn't know and … I needed to improve. You get an outlook on how different things are going to be."\nThe first team All-Big Ten member is vying for a first-round selection, which gives a player a guaranteed contract.\nIn the past week Wright has worked out for New York, Minnesota, Dallas, Detroit and Cleveland, among others. \nAlthough he worked out for a variety of teams with a multitude of needs, the team Wright came away impressed the most by was Detroit, in part due to Pistons' coach Larry Brown, he said.\n"We did things differently," Wright said. "It was more of a practice and teaching you stuff and showing us different things in the NBA game. It was interesting to me. Out of the 12 or 13 teams that I worked out for, that was the only one of that kind."\nWhile at IU Wright was a scorer first, leading the Big Ten in scoring this past season with 18.3 points per game, finishing his three-year career with nearly 1,500 points.\nSince deciding to make the plunge to the NBA, Wright has tried to prove that he is combo-guard rather than just a shooting guard. Proving he could be that type of player was one of the biggest questions that needed answering, said Tommy Thomas, Wright's high school coach at The Colony.\n"The greatest thing he had to prove is that he can do other things than just shoot and score," said Thomas, who also coached Deron Williams, a likely lottery selection. "He has had some excellent defensive feedback and he is handling the ball better. Those were all questions that needed to be answered.\nWhile Wright can handle the ball, he said the main thing teams wanted to know is if he would bring the same level of energy on the defensive end as he has on the offensive end. \nFor some analysts predicting where some high profile players go is almost science, but Wright and agent Bob McClaren feel unsure about the former Hoosier's future.\nWhile many Web sites predict Wright to get picked in the second round or not at all, McClaren said Wright should fairly high.\n"We believe that Bracey will be drafted in the first round or high second," He has done everything he can possibly do."\nWright said agent is talking with seven or eight teams, but also said that much of where he goes depends on who is drafted before him.\n"I would say to be drafted as high as you can go," he said. "I want to be drafted by a team that I will have an opportunity to contributed and be in an environment where there is good team chemistry."\n"I think everything is going to be all right," Wright said. "I've done a lot of praying to God and I think he is going to put me in the right spot"