In any draft, the younger the player, the higher the risk.

Then there's DeAngelo Collins.

	Can this prep phenom make The Leap?

The 6'10", 220-pound Inglewood High star has the body of an NBA power forward and the hands and range to play the 3. Many scouts project him to go late first round. But Collins is also the owner of something unseen in any former prep-to-pro prospect: a lengthy rap sheet.

As a Tustin High freshman, he beat up one of his teammates, inflicting permanent head injuries and causing the victim to undergo plastic surgery. Collins pleaded guilty to felony assault, was fined $35,000 and spent six months in juvenile hall. It wasn't his first stint in juvey. At 13, he assaulted a woman with a deadly weapon and served 60 days. Collins eventually wound up at Inglewood with coach Patrick Roy, a man with a rep for straightening out tough kids. Roy admits that Collins has occasionally missed class but says he's kept his nose clean. "The best thing that ever happened to DeAngelo Collins was Patrick Roy," says Bob Gottlieb, an AAU guru who took Collins into his home in '98. "DeAngelo is bright, but at that time of his life he had a dark side."

It's a side one team in the first round is hoping never to see.

This article appears in the June 24 issue of ESPN The Magazine.