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->To get to Barclays Center from James Bouknight’s home in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, travel down Schenectady Avenue, take a right-hand turn at the Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, then another quick right onto Troy Avenue, followed by a left onto the Eastern Parkway.
A couple of miles later, at the Grand Army Plaza, the parkway turns into Flatbush Avenue, and it’s a straight shot to Barclays Center — home of the Brooklyn Nets and, more to the point, the 2021 NBA Draft.
All told, it’s about a 3.8-mile, 20-minute ride by car. For Bouknight, it’s a journey that’s taken nearly 21 years — from a skinny kid whose early dreams were playing shortstop for the Yankees before taking up basketball in high school, to one of the top collegiate players in the country at UConn this past season and a likely lottery pick on Thursday night.
He could be the first Brooklynite taken in the draft’s top 10 since Stephon Marbury in 1996. The first drafted at all since Isaiah Whitehead, a second-round pick five years ago. Certainly the first Brooklyn product ever to be taken in the first round at Barclays Center. <-