Emmanuel Mudiay Is Not Scared

War-torn Congo, chaos in Dallas, injury in China - nothing has stopped this 19 year-old point guard yet. Can the NBA?

- Kurt Streeter

In the back of a dimly lit ballroom at a midtown Manhattan hotel stands the 19-year-old many consider the most exciting talent among incoming NBA rookies. He is 6-foot-5. He wears his hair in a small, fashionably tousled puff. He smiles broadly. Nobody notices.

The room is full of sports writers eager to talk. But most ignore Emmanuel Mudiay. He settles his long-fingered hands carefully inside the pockets of his slim blue suit and waits. He is accustomed to this, “sort of sneaking up on people,” he says. “I like it that way.”

The ones being pushed toward the cameras at the draft lottery on this May night are the collegiate standouts. They’ve been on magazine covers. They’ve battled through March Madness.They’ve been seen by millions. There is Duke’s Jahlil Okafor, natty in a gleaming brown suit with a red handkerchief peeking from a chest pocket.There is Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky, ruffled and reedy. “Frank the Tank!” bellows the master of ceremonies. “Frank the Tank!” There too is the player almost everyone assumes will be taken first—Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns. When he walks past, square-shouldered and focused, someone blurts: “Oh, look, Towns! It’s Towns!”