By MICHAEL MIDDLEHURST-SCHWARTZ Special to the Daily Press
ST. MONICA The small gym at St. Monica High School is a far cry from the Staples Center or Madison Square Garden.
But over the past two months, NBA hopefuls have flocked to the school to prepare themselves for bigger venues.
Since the end of the college basketball season, powerhouse sports agency Wasserman Media Group has used the St. Monica gym as its workout center for nearly a dozen of its clients hoping to be selected in tonight’s NBA draft.
Rob McClanaghan, Wasserman’s director of player development, brought additional weight equipment into the gym so players could train when not playing basketball.
“It’s been great,” McClanaghan said of the gym. “It’s been our one-stop shop for training ever since we got everything in there.”
Several years ago, the Los Angeles-based agency made Santa Monica its training base for players preparing to be drafted. Clients are encouraged to move to the area to work with McClanaghan and compete against other draft prospects.
McClanaghan said that having a set workout center helps localize a draft process that can include several cross-country trips for players working out for each team.
“It makes it easier to have that base,” McClanaghan said. “It’s a central location and the guys who move out here can live a few minutes away for easy access.”
Memphis guard Derrick Rose, Texas guard D.J. Augustin, Louisiana State forward Anthony Randolph, and Italian forward Danilo Gallinari are among the Wasserman clients who have made the trek to the West Coast to work out in Santa Monica.
Additionally, California natives Russell Westbrook (UCLA), Brook and Robin Lopez (Stanford), and Davon Jefferson (USC) have all worked out at St. Monica.
All but Jefferson are predicted to be first-round draft picks. Rose, Gallinari, Westbrook and Brook Lopez are expected to be among the first 10 selections in the draft.
Kevin Love, a UCLA product who was born in Santa Monica, is also expected to be a top-10 selection. Love is not a Wasserman client.
The gym has mostly been utilized as a place to train between workouts for prospective NBA teams. Wasserman has only had personnel from one NBA team observe one of its players’ workout sessions.
Scouts and executives from the Miami Heat spent Saturday at St. Monica watching Rose work out with McClanaghan and B.J. Armstrong, a former NBA player and Rose’s primary agent.
Expected to be the No. 1 overall selection in the draft, Rose declined an earlier workout in Miami with the Heat, who hold the No. 2 pick in the draft.
But Rose invited the Heat to watch him train in Santa Monica so that he would not have to travel across the country multiple times before attending the draft in New York City.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 26, 2008. Read the original PDF.