Lakeland native and Florida State basketball standout Dwayne Bacon said he’s ready to play in the NBA.
- Dwayne Bacon heading for the NBA draft
- The Florida State player leaving after sophomore year
- This week, he's talking to agents
He declared he was entering the draft after the Seminoles lost to Xavier in the NCAA tournament.
“Personally I would play anywhere. I don’t really mind,” Dwayne Bacon said. “It’s still unreal but at the same time I’m living in it. It’s like exciting but unreal at the same time.”
After his freshman season, Bacon said he was entering the draft and then changed his mind days later.
“I felt like after the first year, I didn’t get to the point where I wanted to be as far as my skill level. I didn’t get to a point as far as a team to say we did enough to be just done here so I took it upon myself to get better during the off-season last summer, develop a lot of different parts of my game to where I could be good enough to enter the draft this year and that’s what I did,” Bacon explained.
This year, sports analysts project the six foot seven Florida State leading scorer and McDonald’s All-American will go in the first or second round.
“I don’t really mind where I get picked. Like I said, it’s only two rounds in the NBA draft. For me to be in the conversation of getting picked is amazing to me just because a lot of guys don’t get the opportunity that I have in front of me. “
This week, he’s talking to agents.
“It’s probably the hardest part of the whole process because you don’t want to pick the wrong guy. But everybody is going to try to sell you a dream,” Bacon said.
Dwayne’s mother, Kennie Crawford said she was very proud of her son. The single mom had him when she was 17, and he’s the oldest of five.
“I just be thankful and thank God. I pushed my kids. I always kept them into something. He played football. Anything he wanted to do. I wanted to keep him out of the streets,” said Kennie Crawford.
“Looking at where I came from, coming up with me not having my dad. My dad died,” Kennie Crawford explained.
“I was not going to let my kids come up and be like another kid or just in trouble. We had family members in and out of jail. I just wanted more for my kids so I just pushed them.
Her pushing Bacon to succeed, along with the help of his AAU basketball coach, Diana Neal, led him to attend the basketball powerhouse, Oak Hill Academy, which then led him to a scholarship at Florida State.
Bacon said he’ll probably cry if his name is called during the draft and the first thing he wants to do is upgrade his Charger to an all black Range Rover.