B/R
Last season, Nets team bus rides operated like NBA-business seminars. Professor Jared Dudley, the 12-year vet, would hold court, lecturing a young roster about everything from 401K plans to the impending free-agency market. When guard Spencer Dinwiddie was weighing a three-year, $34 million extension, the team talked through it together. (He accepted, against Dudley's advice.) "We were so open," Dudley says.
Often, the young player who sat right in front of Dudley would turn around and ask questions of his own. D'Angelo Russell was in the midst of a breakthrough season—and a free-agent one at that.