Initially, it didn’t seem like a very big deal to me when Da’Sean Butler happened to be in Chicago for the NBA’s pre-draft camp last month. This, after all, is where people who might get drafted might want to go. It was later brought to my attention that it was kind of unusual and that unusualness was articulated even more more clearly by Bob Huggins Tuesday afternoon.

“Da’Sean wasn’t invited,” West Virginia Coach Bob Huggins said of his former star who may very well be picked in tonight’s NBA Draft.

Sounds like that one graduation party I went to my senior year of high school. But I guess that is pretty neat. Perhaps it deserves a little more attention. Huggins, after all, called it “ingenious” what agent Richard Katz and Butler conspired to do from that point forward with “random” meetings with NBA people in a hotel lobby and meetings with teams that produced generally favorable reviews.

Butler visited five NBA teams last week – the San Antonio Spurs, Indiana Pacers, Los Angeles Clippers, Portland Trailblazers and Oklahoma City Thunder. Katz and Huggins are not only certain Butler will be drafted, but they’re cautiously hopeful it happens in the first round.

“I think he made great strides (in Chicago) with regard to his confidence,” Katz said. “He was obviously questioning himself and whether he could play, whether he could get back, whether people really liked him.

“He was really down for a time. But that was tremendous move forward for him. He regained his confidence and regained the bounce in his step, which was obviously very big for him in this process.”