Teague usually operates under everyone's radar

Point guard Jeff Teague of the Atlanta Hawks never has had a problem operating in the shadows.

At Pike High School in Indianapolis, he showed up two years after Courtney Lee and Robert Vaden led an undefeated team to the state title and established the program as one of the nation's best.

At Wake Forest, Teague had the unenviable task of following NBA star Chris Paul as the Deacons' catalyst, spending two seasons trying to live up to a standard set by one of the world's greatest point guards.

Teague might not even go down as the most celebrated basketball player in his household. His father, Shawn, was a standout at Boston University under Coach Rick Pitino and his younger brother, Marquis, is a rising junior at Pike and ranked as the nation's No. 2 prospect in his class by Rivals.com.

"Basketball's just in the blood for me," Teague said. "I've always loved the game. The spotlight has never been a big deal to me."

That's a good thing because Teague didn't make his way onto the radar of any major-college programs until the summer before his senior year of high school.

Teague's rise from unheralded high-school junior to first-round draft pick has surprised even some who have watched it unfold from the beginning.

"As a freshman in high school he might have been close to 6 feet tall and about 145 pounds," said former Pike coach Larry Bullington. "His uniform barely stayed on his shoulders, but even then he could dunk a basketball. He had some tools. It just wasn't obvious that he'd make it to the NBA, and certainly not as quickly as he did.

"There were just so many great players coming out of here at the time, it could have been easy for a really good player to get lost in the shuffle. It just took a while for Jeff's game to be appreciated."

Count the Hawks among his recently acquired admirers, and they showed it by snagging him with the 19th pick in the draft last week. That first-round status will go a long way toward helping Teague carve his own place in the basketball tradition of not only his family but also his high school, hometown and college.

"It's great to be a part of something special," said Teague, one of nine current NBA players from Indianapolis. "I guess no one really knew who I was from my freshman year until the summer before my senior year, but there were a lot of great players coming out during that time. I didn't take it personal or anything, I just used it as motivation. Looking back on it, every step of the way has been great preparation for what I'm doing now."

Hawks coach Mike Woodson knows well the tradition of and the prestige associated with being a schoolboy legend in basketball-mad Indiana. He was a high-school star in Indianapolis in the 1970s and went on to an All-American career at Indiana under Bob Knight.

"It's huge," Woodson said. "And it's nice to see all these kids from Indy coming out now. For a while there I started wondering what had happened to Indiana basketball, so to have this influx of players now from my city is really nice to see."

Teague should have no problem folding himself into the fabric of his new city and team, said Woodson, who said that Teague's unflappable demeanor, passion for the game and desire to be great will endear him to teammates and fans.

"He's going to be a player," Woodson said. "And I don't want to say that too loudly, because I don't want to put any undue pressure on him, and there's a learning curve for all young players, but he has the skills you need to be a big-time player in our league."

Bullington said Teague has always had those skills, even when they were hard to spot.

"He's just so fast with the ball from end to end," said Bullington, an Indiana high-school star himself and a member of the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame after a stellar 25-year coaching career. "It was always hard for anyone to stay in front of Jeff, even when he was a freshman.

"The thing about Jeff is that even though he's just 6-2, his wingspan is like 6-7 or 6-8, and he's a great athlete."

, so there's a lot to work with there. He's gotten so much stronger, obviously, since high school. Coming through behind a group of great kids was also the ideal atmosphere for him because it serves as such a positive motivator for young kids."

Coming up during one of the most competitive eras in his city's rich basketball tradition didn't hurt either.

"In this city you just have to do very best you can to survive," Bullington said. "There's so much competition for teams and players. It's like my father always said about Marion County (where Indianapolis is located), you've only got to drive 15 minutes for somebody to kick your rear end.

"Jeff Teague came up in that kind of environment, and he'll be better than the average guy because of it."