NBA

Nets look at Seton Hall’s Hazell

Home. It is a word of comfort, a reassuring word. It conjures up soothing images. But for Seton Hall’s Jeremy Hazell, “home” frightens him.

It was Christmas night and Hazell was headed home to his mother’s apartment in the Carver Houses in Harlem. He had just had Christmas dinner at a friend’s home when four men approached. A foiled armed-robbery attempt ended with Hazell fleeing for his life and taking a bullet in the armpit.

“I’m walking home and I see four guys. I don’t think nothing of it. I’m in my projects, so I think it’s just four guys walking around on Christmas,” recalled Hazell, who was among six draft hopefuls working out for the Nets yesterday.

“One pulls out a gun and tells me I gotta sit down. I don’t want to sit down, so he grabs my arm and pushes me. I yanked him off and kind of stumbled, pushed him, turned and started running. He shot about four times. The first one hit me under my arm, and I just kept running.”

According to Hazell, someone upstairs was looking out for him. He fled into the street — right in front of an ambulance.

“At 1:10 in the morning, an ambulance ain’t out there in New York,” Hazell said with a huge grin. “I think God put it there.”

So the incident left a physical and mental scar — “It’s a little scary going back, but that’s where I’m from, so I just cannot not go back. My mom’s there, I got a lot of family so, I try to stay away from it, but when I got to see my mom, I got to go back to the same place. It’s a little scary but I deal with it.”

The culprits were not caught and the incident was only part of Hazell’s rough senior year. A second-team All-Big East choice as a junior, Hazell broke his wrist in November — he was out with the injury when he was shot. He missed 13 games, averaged 19.8 points, shot .422. Even with his setbacks, Hazell, considered a scorer, feels he has made a strong enough case to have his name called somewhere at next week’s NBA Draft.

“I think I should be drafted. I’m under the radar a little bit, but people know what I can do. I had a great four years at Seton Hall University, so that just speaks for itself. But I’m just coming out here and busting my butt and just working hard against these top guys,” Hazell said, indicating the Nets would be ideal.

“It would be great. I’m just happy to be blessed to have these metropolitan NBA teams give me a chance to try out for them. So it’s just a blessing to come back and play where I played college ball. I’m just happy right now that they gave me the opportunity.”

The Nets will resume workouts Monday. Yesterday’s group included forwards Tyler Honeycutt of UCLA, Jonathan Mitchell of Rutgers, Rashad Bishop of Cincinnati, Carleton Scott of Notre Dame and Chris Wright of Dayton.

fred.kerber@nypost.com