Cover Boys: Tyson and Eddy

Photo by Mark Hanauer
HOW CHICAGO BULLS EDDY CURRY AND TYSON CHANDLER SPENT THEIR SUMMER VACATIONS PREPARING FOR THE NBA.

Getting Wet. Do fans think baseball is the summer game? Don't tell that to Eddy Curry, Tyson Chandler and some other NBA hopefuls. The Magazine's Tom Friend reports on Chicago's teenaged duo and other NBA rookies who earned their pro props while playing in the L.A. summer league.

An excerpt from the feature article, written by Tom Friend:

He orders a pizza from room service, just because he can, and he signs his soon-to-be-household name on the check: Tyson Chandler. He is about to eat, but says, "Oops, hold on." He puts his hands together, says the Lord's Prayer, and that's it. He's just prayed over a cheese and oregano pizza.

One floor down, his new best friend is having a steak, again courtesy of room service. The friend is wearing a black headband and has one eye on the red meat and one eye on a shoot-'em-up TV movie. But Eddy Curry does not dare eat his potatoes. His body fat is down to 12.5%, he's lost 50 pounds to get to 285, and he intends to keep it this way.

So this is Chicago's future, and the two of them are the latest case study on youth and excess. Five of this year's first seven picks showed up in Long Beach, but only these two were high schoolers and only these two were surrounded for postgame interviews every day.

As pictured above, Curry and Chandler are featured on the cover of ESPN The Magazine's August 6 issue.