When David Young decided on an agent, Young had one request.

"He begged me to get him one workout with an NBA team," said Brian Elfus, a San Diego-based agent. "Then he said he'd take care of the rest."

It wasn't idle talk from Young, a former star basketball player at New Castle High School. Young wasn't on the NBA draft radar two months ago. But he has done so well in workouts with NBA teams that his stock has soared in recent weeks and he might be selected in the two-round draft tomorrow night.

Young's first workout was last month with the Houston Rockets. Yesterday he worked out for the Atlanta Hawks and will have his second workout with the Los Angeles Lakers today. The Seattle SuperSonics also have worked him out twice. After today, Young will have worked out with 11 teams. In the past 10 days, he has worked out for San Antonio, Dallas, Seattle and Miami.

Elfus said Young does not want to talk with reporters until after the draft but added, "There are teams definitely intrigued with him."

Young, a 6-foot-5 shooting guard, played 2¹*₂ seasons at Xavier University before leaving the team in December 2002. He played this past season at North Carolina Central, an NCAA Division II school.

Hoopshype.com, which scouts players for the draft, had Young as "nondrafted" a few weeks ago. Now, the Web site has Young as a "second-round bubble."

At some of the workouts, Young has reportedly outplayed some players projected as definite second-round picks.

"The Rockets originally called me for a workout with him and the Lakers remembered him from his Xavier days," Elfus said. "It just went from there. Seattle [June 4] is really where the buzz started about him."

Since the NBA went to a two-round draft in 1989, only two former WPIAL players have been selected. Slippery Rock University's Myron Brown, a Sto-Rox graduate, was an early second-round pick of the Minnesota Timberwolves in 1991. Cincinnati's Dan Fortson, a Shaler graduate, was picked by the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round in 1997.

"I don't remember having a client like him," Elfus said. "He's just very determined to get to where he wants to go."

Young scored 2,198 career points at New Castle and was a two-time Post-Gazette Player of the Year in 1998 and '99. The New Castle '99 team is considered one of the WPIAL's best in the past 20 years.

Young was not academically eligible to play his first year at Xavier. His best season for the Musketeers was 2001-02, when he started 30 games and averaged eight points and 3.6 rebounds. But the next season, he didn't like his role on coach Thad Matta's team, and the two sides mutually parted ways.

If Young would have transferred to another Division I school, he would have been out of eligibility. But he would have one year left at a Division II school, so he transferred to North Carolina Central in Durham, N.C., where his mother lives. He shot 50 percent from the field, 78 percent from the line and 36 percent from 3-point range. He scored 21 points at the Black College All-Star Classic in Atlanta and was named the game's MVP.