Two days before the N.B.A. draft and a mile away from the Barclays Center, where it will be held, the former Kentucky Wildcats center Dakari Johnson roared as he dunked on his uncle in the gym at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
“They live for this,” Johnson’s mother, Makini Campbell, said as she turned her head toward the court. “They’ll be talking about it the whole evening.”
Dakari Johnson, 19, is one of a record seven Wildcats who declared early for Thursday’s draft, and he is expected to go early in the second round.