By Paul M. Banks is Founder/President of The Sports Bank.net

With the exception of his BFF Evan Turner, Illinois junior guard Demetri McCamey is perhaps the most written about individual athlete on The Sports Bank. Today “Baby Ben Gordon” announced his intentions to enter the NBA Draft sans agent.

So he will have a chance to return to college next season, and I think he will. Although this is a very weak point guard class, I don’t think he’ll end up a first round pick. So I’ll think he’ll back in Champaign next year. But I think he’s definitely doing the right thing by testing the waters.

Our good friends at Hail to the Orange found this exchange  on Illini HQ.com, it’s Bruce Weber discussing the reality of Cames’ possibly departure and how he’s preparing for it.

How concerned are you that he will leave?

I’m concerned. You know, if he’s a first-round pick, I’m happy for him. He’s got to go. Does it hurt us? Yeah, it hurts us. But a kid only has that window. If he’s not ready my concern is to make sure he does everything right, so he doesn’t get himself in trouble. Whether that’s the agents, taking care of his classroom stuff, so he doesn’t get himself in trouble. I don’t want him hurt for life because some guy on the street told him, “The NBA guys don’t know what they’re talking about, you’re a first-round pick.”

If you add another player in this (2010) class, what are you looking for?

One thing we’re looking for, obviously, is a backup point guard. Six weeks ago, or whenever it was that Demetri had that (good) stretch and his name popped up there, the first thing I said to the coaches was, “We better start looking ahead. Whether he’s a first-round pick or not, we have to look ahead.” We need to at least look around in case something happens. So a point guard. If we found somebody with a little toughness, I think we would look at that.

And here’s an interesting plea for him to stay on McCamey’s Facebook page. This was written on his wall

“1 more please 1 more we will have a chance at a championship richmond u griffey tisdale paul dj leonard bertrand please just 1 more year”

I’m sure Illini fans will agree. And just for s—ts and giggles, I felt it was time to re-publish my favorite Evan Turner quote ever. It’s about hit rivalry with McCamey and it’s from the first exclusive I ever had with Turner.

“We were just so competitive growing up, sometimes I’d be at the gym at night, leaving the gym and I say: ‘Yo fat boy I just put up 400 shots, I hope you’re doing the same thing, because when I see you I’m about to kill you.’ But you know he takes it all in fun. We take it all in fun. It’s about the need to push ourselves, back in high school it was like what did Evan do? What did Demetri do? How did he do? I’m gonna beat him. So it definitely helped us a lot,” Turner said about McCamey.

Paul M. Banks is Founder/President of The Sports Bank.net, an Upper Midwest sports webzine. He’s also a member of the Football Writers Association of America, the United States Basketball Writers Association and a sports writer for the Washington Times.com Communities and Walter Football.com

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Tags: Demetri McCamey, Illini, illini demetri mccamey, NBA Draft