Best Local NBA Hopeful (Who Doesnt Have a Prayer)

Ray Johnston is the kind of guy you don't wanna end up guarding in a pickup game at the local park. It's one thing to be shown up by the guy in the vintage Jordans and the headband cocked just so, who looks like he was practicing turnaround jumpers as soon as he could walk. It's quite another to have a 6-foot-nothing loan officer skipping bounce passes between your legs and swishing 20-foot jumpers on you all day. But that's what you get if you take Johnston, 25, lightly. You probably won't now that the secret's out. And it is most definitely out. The Mavericks invited him to play at a summer minicamp after watching him play in the Hoop-It-Up tournament, and then added him to the team's summer-league roster. Will he make the real squad this season? No way. But his dream is still alive.