Jabari Parker said early entry to the NBA is not a certainty.
“I’m going to look into that,” Parker said of staying at Duke beyond the 2013-14 season. “I love the whole attitude of ‘staying in college,’ because I want to take advantage of it. Getting a free education is big time in my family.”
Parker wants to be viewed as a role model in his hometown of Chicago.
“Everything in my city is negative,” Parker said of how he feels his hometown is portrayed in national media. “[The media] try to bring it down so much with the violence and I’m an African-American male in my community…going to college and that’s big time.
“I want to represent them in the best form, the best manner just to keep them close to my heart so they can see that there’s a young [guy] out on the South Side doing big things.”