Nikola Vucevic Signs With Agent

Excerpt from the ESPN Los Angeles:

University of Southern California junior forward Nikola Vucevic will forgo his senior season to enter the 2011 NBA draft and has signed with agent Rade Filipovich of Bill Duffy's BDA Sports Management, he announced Friday.

"I just felt like this was the right time for me to leave," Vucevic said. "I think I showed a lot of things that I can do at this level. I made improvements each year, and I think that this year I showed what I can do.

"I'm ready as a person and as a player. I'm mature enough and it was just the perfect opportunity for me."

Vucevic also referenced being fully invested as his reasoning for signing with an agent immediately after declaring, as opposed to testing the waters first and waiting until the NBA-mandated deadline of May 8 to decide whether to return to school.

"I just feel like if you do something, you have to go into it 100 percent," he said. "I felt like testing the waters usually doesn't end up very well.

"It's a lot easier if you give everything you have into it, because if you're in-between it's hard to do stuff. You have to be fully focused on it."