Pacers take a look at potential lottery pick Kelly Oubre

Kelly Oubre wears an exhaustive tattoo down his right biceps. There are jazz players and an alligator, a football stadium and a cathedral. It's New Orleans. It's home.

"A tribute to my city," he calls it.

It's the home he had to leave then to get to where he's at today: Before Oubre was a high school All-American, a promising freshman at Kansas or, on Tuesday, one of six hopefuls working out for the Indiana Pacers a few weeks shy of the NBA Draft, he was a 9-year-old fleeing Hurricane Katrina, a scared kid who piled into the car with dad and drove into an uncertain future.

They left town a day before the hurricane unleashed its fury, father and son drifting from hotel to hotel during August and September 2005. They watched on television as the destruction ravaged their streets and their city and their neighbors. Was his mom OK? His sister? His brother? There were days he didn't know.

Kelly Oubre Sr. left his job in New Orleans so he could keep his boy safe. He worked the night shift at various stops along the way, always making sure young Kelly made it to school each morning and basketball practice after that. Together, father and son survived. The family, which later fled to Mississippi, survived.

"He was my superman," the younger Oubre says of his dad. "We were kind of homeless a little bit. (But) we made it. He made sacrificed for us. And that's why I'm here now."

Where he was Tuesday: Auditioning his basketball repertoire in front of Larry Bird and the Pacers front office at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. (Indiana selects 11th in the June 25 draft.) A slender 6-6, Oubre's raw ability screams a young, unpolished Paul George. He owns the sort of upside coaches can't coach (see: his 7-2 wingspan). His talent is tantalizing.

Yet he's just 19. He's inconsistent, his game incomplete. He averaged fewer than 10 points a game with Kansas last season, his first and only in college. He'd be a gamble for any team in the lottery, including Indiana.

That's fine. Knock him all you want, Oubre says. He was never supposed to be here in the first place.

"God sent us an angel down to protect us," Oubre said. "(The hurricane) pretty much kicked us out of the city. If it wasn't for that move, I wouldn't be here today. Going through that time, it put a chip on my shoulder. I came from nothing. My city was destroyed. My dad made sacrifices for us to be homeless so I could succeed in the long run.

"If it wasn't for that time, I don't know what I'm doing."

After Katrina, Houston became his adopted home. Oubre blossomed. He became one of the top prep talents in the country, a McDonald's All American. And Tuesday, after working out for the Pacers, he wasn't lacking for confidence.

That chip on his shoulder? It's for real.

"I'm not a slouch," Oubre promised. "I'm gonna be one of the greatest to ever play the game."

This, of course, after he worked out for one of the greatest to ever play the game.

But as Bird weighs the needs of his basketball team, Oubre is the sort of player who offers the potential Bird undoubtedly seeks: A kid who can play fast, not to mention above the rim. If the Pacers intend to quicken their tempo next season, as Bird has said he'd like to see happen, Oubre would fit right in.

Without much hesitation, the Kansas product likens his game to some of the best wings in the game: Indiana's George, Houston's James Harden, San Antonio's Kawhi Leonard and Chicago's Jimmy Butler.

"I want to model my game after guys like that, like a hard-nosed cat, a guy that can bring winning to a team," Oubre said.

The draft beckons in 23 days. The Oubre family will reconvene, in New York, to see their son fulfill his dreams. For now he'll continue with his job interviews, carrying around the memento that will never leave him. That tattoo on Oubre's right arm reminds him he's been through the worst of it. It reminds him of the city he left behind.

It reminds him, too, what others have sacrificed so he can stand where he now stands.

"It's motivated me all my life," he said.

Note: Also working out Tuesday were Anthony Brown, Stanford (the 40th best prospect according to draftexpress.com); Cady Lalanne (65th), UMass; Luis Montero (unranked), Westchester Community College; Jon Octeus (unranked), Purdue; and Gabe Olaseni (unranked), Iowa.

Call Star reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134. Follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.