Dwayne Davis lost his mother as a teenager, then was forced to take most of the responsibility in raising his baby brother and 8-year-old sister.
They slept in homeless shelters and his mother’s old van, with Dwayne driving his sister to school even before he got a license. He sold stolen PlayStation 3s out of the car to get enough money for food.
Now, with those trying times behind him, Davis is looking toward a future that is infinitely brighter — the NBA . The 6-foot-5 shooting guard played just one season of basketball at Southern Miss, but made such a good impression that he was invited to the prestigious Portsmouth Invitational.
He turned in one of the best performances at the tournament, and after some individual workouts a handful of teams are looking at Dwayne Davis as a second-round consideration in the NBA draft .
His agent, Keith Kreiter of Edge Sports International, has high hopes.
“I think he will hear his name called in the mid-to-late second round,” Kreiter said. “How confident am I? The draft is very tough and it’s difficult to say, but I think he brings a lot to the table. You know he’s going to work hard every day, you know he’s going to be a great teammate, you know he’s going to score the ball and you know he’s going to play hard at both ends.”
Even as he is on the edge of a lucrative professional basketball career, Davis has a hard time letting go of his old life. When the Chicago Bulls offered to send a limo to the airport to pick him up for a workout earlier this month, he told them to save their money and took a cab instead. Later, when team executives took him to dinner, Davis ordered the cheapest item on the menu, a personal cheese pizza.
While some draft boards put Dwayne Davis in the mid to late second round, other draft analysts believe he is more likely to be picked up after the draft as a free agent . Aside from the Bulls, teams showing interest include the Phoenix Suns, Dallas Mavericks, Milwaukee Bucks, and Atlanta Hawks.
