<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">With bloodlines that run deep in the game, Yaroslav Korolev probably was destined to be a basketball player. His father, Igor, was a professional player and now coaches the junior national men's team in Russia. His mother, Svetlana, played for the national junior women's team. And his sister, Julie, plays for the national women's team. I didn't have a choice, you know," Korolev said Wednesday. "When I was in school, 13-14 [years old], we sometimes start talking, 'Why are you in basketball?' They ask me and I'm like, 'Oh, yeah, why am I in basketball?' " Hand on chin, his head cocked quizzically, he smiled. "I didn't have choice, for real," he continued. "That's why." Not that he was complaining. No other Korolev ever reached the heights in basketball that the youngest in the family has scaled. His parents looked on and beamed Wednesday as Korolev, the Clippers' first-round pick in Tuesday night's NBA draft, was introduced to the Los Angeles media at a Staples Center news conference. No other Russian has been taken higher in the draft than the callow Korolev, who was the 12th pick even though he turned 18 only last month. "It's very exciting to be in Los Angeles," he said. "I like very much Los Angeles, for real. It's warm here. I'm tired of the cold in Russia." Korolev, though, might have to endure one more Russian winter. The Clippers reiterated that they might keep him overseas for another year of seasoning before bringing him on board. That determination won't be made, they said, until after Korolev plays in the junior European championships next month and then is tested in workouts against other Clipper players in August. By that time, the Clipper roster should be more fully formed, another factor in determining where Korolev will play next season. On Wednesday, Korolev was tickled just to have been drafted. Neither he nor his agent, Marc Fleisher, considered that a real possibility last winter, when Korolev averaged 15.9 points and 5.8 rebounds for CSKA Moscow's junior team, the same club that sent Andrei Kirilenko to the NBA. "Because of his age, we never really focused on the NBA as an option for him this early until he really had his coming-out party in Moscow," said Fleisher, referring to a national junior tournament last month in the Russian capital won by Korolev's team and attended by representatives of a number of NBA teams, among them Clipper Coach Mike Dunleavy. "Half the NBA was coming up to me and saying, 'This is the best kid we've seen in Europe in a long time.' So, we took a serious look at whether he should consider the draft or not, and you've seen the result." Said Korolev: "I thought for real it can be. When you look at the European stars that come here to NBA and they are now NBA champions like Manu Ginobili [an Argentine who played in Italy], you just look and you think you want to be like them. You just think, 'He's a [foreign] player like you, why not?' "You've got to make your dream."</div> Source
