Larry Sanders show: Unheralded VCU recruit to first-rounder?

AKRON, Ohio -- How do you go from there to here?

That's the first question I wanted to ask Larry Sanders.

Larry Sanders has gone from not playing basketball as a high school sophomore to a projected NBA Draft pick. (Getty Images)

I figured we could talk about the ridiculous stat line (18 points, 20 rebounds, seven blocks) from the Colonial Athletic Association title game later, then his old coach (Anthony Grant), then his new coach (Shaka Smart) and then whatever else might come up. There was plenty of time for all that. But the first thing I wanted to know after watching the Virginia Commonwealth standout perform at the LeBron James Skills Academy this week is how exactly did he go from there (i.e., a barely recruited two-star prospect) to here (i.e., a projected first-round pick of the 2010 NBA Draft) in a matter of three years?

"By working hard," Sanders said. "By working hard."

The LeBron James Skills Academy is about the high school prospects.

And the coaches who come to watch them.

(And confiscated tapes, of course.)

But one of the added bonuses of attending this event each summer is that Nike offers invitations to some of the nation's best college players, and so they come and work out and end each night with a string of pickup games. It's the best against the best, a who's who of talent. And right there on the roster in between Michigan State's Kalin Lucas and Georgia Tech's Iman Shumpert was VCU's Larry Sanders, which is wild in many ways.

Consider: Lucas and Shumpert were McDonald's All-Americans in high school -- a pair of elite recruits with scholarship offers from one notable school after another. They are here, and they should be. But Sanders didn't even start playing organized basketball until 11th grade, and when he committed to VCU he didn't have a single offer from a BCS-affiliated program, only a few offers from schools like Western Carolina and George Washington.

He could not have been more off the radar.

He was a project even by CAA standards.

But Sanders turned in a solid freshman season (4.9 points and 5.2 rebounds in 16.6 minutes per game) and then flourished as a sophomore (11.3 points and 8.6 rebounds in 26.6 minutes per game). That was enough to earn an invitation to this prestigious event, where he banged bodies with Cole Aldrich (Kansas), and Jerome Jordan (Tulsa) and looked very much like he belonged.

Which reminds me of Jason Thompson.

Thompson, like Sanders, was a relative unknown to casual college basketball fans when he received an invitation to the LeBron James Skills Academy following his sophomore season at Rider. I remember watching the pickup games two summers ago, seeing Thompson perform well and hearing coaches from the Big East, Big Ten and every other power conference joke about whether Thompson would consider transferring before the start of classes.

He entered as a question mark and left with a name.

Eleven months later, he was a lottery pick.

And while it's probably a stretch to predict that same path for Sanders, it should be noted that DraftExpress.com projects the 6-foot-10 forward to go 25th in the 2010 NBA Draft. Meantime, Aldrich is slotted fourth and Jordan 20th. But two different NBA scouts who attended the LeBron James Skills Academy this week told CBSSports.com that they would absolutely take Sanders over Jordan. The consensus seemed to be that Sanders' development is remarkable given that he didn't start playing basketball until his high school coach spotted him walking down the hallway and pleaded with him to join the team.

Why didn't Sanders play earlier?

"I was 6-6 and I couldn't dribble or shoot," he said. "I didn't like it."

And now?

"I love it," Sanders answered with a smile. "The harder I work, the better I get."