Thirty days after the deadline to declare for the NBA Draft, underclassmen will finally get their first chance to work out for pro teams today at the league's pre-draft camp in Orlando, Fla.

It has been a nerve-racking wait for the likes of North Carolina's Ty Lawson, Wayne Ellington and Danny Green and N.C. State's J.J. Hickson, who submitted their names for the draft but did not hire agents.

And it has been a frustration for many college coaches, who remain in a seven-week holding pattern while their star players decide whether to return to school. The deadline for underclassmen to pull out of the draft is June 16.

"Everybody wants these young men to have opportunities; we don't want to take that away," N.C. State coach Sidney Lowe said. "But the timetable between when they declare and when they pull out is just too long, because you don't know if they're coming back. ... That's not fair to the next kid you're trying to recruit, to their teammates. ... "

Or to their coaches, who can't sign new players until they know if those scholarships will be available. And who can't entirely begin planning for the future because they don't know which players will be back.

"The rule the way it's written now -- you can declare and put your name in and take it out -- is not a good one for college basketball," Clemson coach Oliver Purnell said. "The timing of it is problematic. From a college basketball standpoint, you have to think what will your team have the next year. You're recruiting juniors and sophomores and trying to look ahead and all of that. Then you have guys hanging in there and a 13 scholarship limit. It's a lot to balance."

Until last year, underclassmen were allowed to participate in individual workouts with pro teams at their own expense before the pre-draft camp, leading many to make decisions about their pro futures just weeks after they declared.

But those solo workouts led to many of the top prospects skipping the camp altogether -- leading the NBA to ban all private workouts until after the camp.

Thus, the wait.

"What it does for coaches, it leaves them in limbo," said Karl Hicks, the ACC's Associate Commissioner for Basketball Operations. "What it does for kids is distract them when they're trying to get books in order."

In addition, a new NBA rule this season allows NBA teams to pay for 48-hour individual workouts with underclassmen, which many coaches believe is the reason a record 69 underclassmen declared for the draft.

Lowe, a former NBA head coach, says that rule is problematic, too.

"It gives some kids the idea that, 'Hey, I can just throw my name in there and try out,' even if they're not ready,'' Lowe said.

"Now, having said that, the NBA is not going to pay for a kid [to try out] who they think can't really make their team ... but it might put something in a kid's head where otherwise, he might not really be thinking about doing it [declaring] that year."

For some underclassmen, "testing the waters" gives them a sense of what they need to improve upon to make it in the NBA.

Clemson's James Mays, a Garner High graduate, declared early last year and pulled out after the pre-draft camp, realizing he wasn't going to be a top-15 pick. He missed the first session of summer school but came away knowing he needed to work on his mid-range game, his dad, Hardrick, said.

"I think it's good for a mature young man who wants to get a feel of what he needs to do, of where he's at in that arena -- because it's so huge, and so demanding,'' said Hardrick Mays, who coaches girls basketball at Garner.

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