Italy - Brandon Jennings, an N.B.A. Trailblazer, Encounters Bumps in the Road

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After being undressed by the Detroit Pistons, Brandon Jennings of the Bucks stood in front of his locker Friday night at the Bradley Center and pulled on a pair of jeans. He slipped his long arms through the short sleeves of a black button-down shirt and fumbled for the top button.

Brandon Jennings with Lottomatica Virtus Roma last December. He averaged 5.5 points and called his season “humbling.”

His struggles were not over. His shirt was on inside out. Jennings looked down, and a sheepish smile crept across his face. “My bad,” he said as he wriggled out of it. “Rookie mistake.”

Jennings, whom the Bucks picked 10th over all in the June draft, blazed a new trail to the N.B.A. He became the first high school athlete to bypass college to play one year of professional basketball overseas before entering the draft.

He averaged 5.5 points, 2.3 assists and 17 minutes in 27 games with Lottomatica Virtus Roma, an experience he described as “humbling” after his star turn on the high school stage. Since then, more air has been let out of his ego. Jennings, 20, may be a second-year pro, but as an N.B.A. rookie he faces a steep learning curve. In his start against the Pistons, he played like a college underclassman among men.

At 6 feet 1 inch and 169 pounds, Jennings was knocked off his game by the Pistons’ starting point guard, Rodney Stuckey, who is 4 inches taller and nearly 40 pounds heavier, and bullied by Stuckey’s backup, Will Bynum. He missed 7 of 9 shots and finished with three turnovers and five fouls in 27 minutes.

It was the Bucks’ final exhibition game before their season opener Friday at Philadelphia, and Jennings, a point guard who is competing against the seventh-year veteran Luke Ridnour for a starting spot, did not help his cause.

“This was not a great night for Brandon,” Bucks Coach Scott Skiles said, adding, “But that’s why you play these games, so he can get a further understanding of what it takes to excel at this level.”

The N.B.A. is faster and more physical than Jennings expected. And the players, even the journeymen, are a handful. “That really surprised me,” Jennings said. “Everyone’s really legit. Everyone’s special in their certain way.”

A day before the game against the Pistons, Jennings had produced his best practice, flashing a take-charge aggressiveness to complement his quickness. He had visions of Tony Parker dancing in the heads of the Bucks’ coaching staff.

But any rookie season is an awkward masquerade, full of missteps. The players who survive — indeed, the ones who thrive — realize that a love of the game is not enough, that being a professional entails honing one’s craft day after day.

“Brandon’s trying,” Kelvin Sampson, a Bucks assistant coach, said, adding, “The reason I think he’s going to be a good player in this league is he always comes back and works hard.”

Jennings’s birthday was Sept. 23, and he celebrated by staying up late polishing his game. He texted Sampson, who lives less than a mile from him, at 9 p.m. and asked if he would meet him at the gym, and they worked deep into the night.

So far Jennings’s decision-making has impressed his coaches. He moved into a condo less than a mile from the Bucks’ training center in St. Francis, Wis., far from downtown Milwaukee and its beckoning nightlife.

There is an Italian-made Ferrari in the players’ parking lot, but it does not belong to Jennings. It is center Andrew Bogut’s car. Jennings opted for a Ford Edge, with its sticker price of $26,000. “I want to save my money,” he explained.

Jennings’s life experiences have given him a maturity that belies his youth. His childhood effectively ended in grade school with his father’s suicide. Jennings left his hometown, Compton, Calif., to play basketball in Mouth of Wilson, Va., at Oak Hill Academy, where he was the Parade Magazine player of the year as a senior in 2008.

From there he took his game overseas, immersing himself in European basketball, with its emphasis on defense and fundamentals, and Italian culture. Sampson recently had dinner with Jennings and his mother, Alice Knox, and half brother, Terrence Phillips, who were in town for a visit, and he marveled at their descriptions of visits to museums and churches in and around Rome.

Jennings has seen and done so much already, it is easy to forget his peers are sitting in college classrooms taking sophomore classes. Then he casually mentions he just got his driver’s license and recently acquired his first pet, a Yorkie he named Buck, to keep him company, and one is reminded that for all his maturity, he is still very much a kid.

“There’s a little bit of bug eyes in him right now,” Sampson said.

It is understandable, especially on nights like Friday when Jennings’s path to the basket is blocked by Ben Wallace, whom he watched lead the Pistons to the 2004 N.B.A. championship over his hometown Lakers when he was 14.

Jennings appears to be well positioned to succeed. He is working under a head coach who was an N.B.A. point guard, and in a city with fans who reward effort and attitude. Sitting courtside Friday was Green Bay Packers receiver Greg Jennings (no relation), who said, “I think Brandon’s going to be a huge asset to the city.” He added: “The fans in Wisconsin, they embrace their athletes. It’s all about how you represent yourself. If you’re sociable and work hard, everyone loves you.”

So far so good, Sampson said. “He’s doing all the right things,” he said. “At some point, he’s got to take steps forward.”