CHESTER, Pa. – The newest hope of a sagging Kings franchise is a teenage basketball prodigy from decayed urban streets where no one – no matter how gifted – truly escapes unscathed.

At 19, Tyreke Evans is a celebrated, 6-foot-5-inch point guard bound for Arco Arena with a personal narrative both harrowing and uplifting. The player Kings fans hope to see is an NBA version of the shy but powerful athlete who has dominated all previous opponents and soared to the rim at will.

"It hasn't really hit me yet," Evans said last week "The night of the NBA draft, I got 185 text messages. I don't know that many people."

Not that many people know Tyreke Evans, either. Not really. He looks like a kid in baggy pants, New York Yankees cap and size 14 basketball shoes. He carries two cell phones, one of which is always pressed to his ear. He can play video games all day and be happy. When Evans speaks, he seems younger than he is. "When you hear him talk, you think, 'That's the future of the Kings franchise?' " said his trainer, Lamont Peterson. "But put him on the court and see what happens."

Said Kings president Geoff Petrie: "He has a great chance to be a star."

For this Evans has been groomed since he was 4, when his older brothers made his development a family quest.

Gunshots nearly destroyed it all. Evans' cousin was convicted of killing a young man from a vehicle Evans was driving in 2007.

Before the Kings chose him as the fourth player in the NBA draft on June 25, Evans was virtually convicted as an accessory to murder in the online court of public opinion.

"Here is a guy who has never had a fistfight in his life and people are looking at him like he's a thug, a murderer," said James "Reggie" Evans, Tyreke's older brother.

The contrasts of Evans' life – raw basketball talent and a brush with death – are emblematic. On the court, Evans was dubbed "Too Easy" because his explosive fluidity made basketball seem effortless. Off the court, nothing has been easy during Evans' trek to the brink of an NBA payday.

Evans' hometown hosts rusted buildings and abandoned shipyards and automobile manufacturing plants along the Delaware River. A short drive from Philadelphia's airport, Chester was declared a financially distressed municipality by Pennsylvania in 1995. Nearly 30 percent of Chester lives below the federal poverty line, in faded, brick row houses dotted among vacant yards where tall weeds mingle with boarded buildings.

Everywhere you go in Chester, locals warn visitors to "be careful." The city seems desperate in the daytime. It seems dangerous at night.

Evans' talent got him out of Chester and into the University of Memphis. Before that, his ability spirited him to a private school in nearby – and far more affluent – Aston. His future has been guided and protected by a shield of brothers and handlers who follow his every move, sit in on every interview, guard every family detail.

His brother Reggie Evans is his legal guardian. The other three older brothers only let people in so far. Their mom, Bonita, is off-limits to the media – as is the family home where Evans grew up and where he stayed last week.

In the Philadelphia area, they call Evans' protective cocoon "The Circle." Some might call this arrangement paranoid or unnatural. But the Evans' family makes no apologies. They saw their brother as a target and his talent as a vehicle for economic emancipation for Evans and his family.

The player recalls that his father – John Holmes – was a truck driver constantly on the road when Evans was little. His older, half brothers filled the void.

"It was almost like a brother-son," said Reggie Evans, who at 37 is 18 years older than Tyreke.

Reggie Evans was talking about his brother-son last week at a private gym in Aston, where Tyreke Evans played many of his high school games. He remembers spotting Tyreke's ability and then harnessing it. When Tyreke was only 4, Reggie Evans tied one of his arms to his side with duct tape and made him dribble the ball one-handed until he mastered the art. Then he taped the other arm until the child was ambidextrous.

Call The Bee's Marcos Breton, (916) 321-1096.