Draft offers paltry pickings at center

The prized big man in Thursday's NBA draft is a center who can't score.

The second-best big man is a freshman who started only two games in his lone college season.

"The fives," Heat scout Chet Kammerer said of this year's class of centers, "are not good at all. It's sad. I mean, it's not very encouraging, that's for sure, if you're looking for centers."

The prize, or perhaps consolation prize, among this draft's big men is UConn center Hasheem Thabeet, who did not average more than 13.6 points in any of his three collegiate seasons.

"Obviously, you would prefer to find a center that would be more well-rounded," Kammerer said. "But . . . Thabeet at least he has two skills that are unique. He blocked 4½ shots per game, and he is a solid rebounder."

Thabeet is expected to be among the first five selections.

The only other center expected to be drafted in the first round is Ohio State freshman B.J. Mullens, who is so raw that he averaged just 20.3 minutes.

Mullens is expected to go in the middle of the first round.

Both will be out of the range of the Heat, which holds only two second-round selections.

But it is times such as these that hearten Heat President Pat Riley about last season's decision to trade for Jermaine O'Neal to fill his team's void in the middle.

The NBA draft, of course, is replete with stories of reaching for height over skill. Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan. Michael Olowokandi over Vince Carter.

Yet teams continue to reach.

Sometimes, such as the 2002 debate over Chinese Olympian Yao Ming and Duke guard Jay Williams, the big man proves the proper choice, as the Rockets can attest.

Other times, teams are left to lament allowing a big man to slide, as was the case with Stanford 7-footer Brook Lopez, who thrived with the Nets last season after falling to No. 10.

Mostly, though, there is trepidation about putting faith in the potential of pure size.

Thabeet, a 7-3 native of Tanzania, enters the draft as one-dimensional as, say, Dikembe Mutombo, who averaged 9.9 points over his Georgetown career. However, Mutombo more than proved his worth after being selected No. 4 overall by the Nuggets in 1991.

"The thing people don't understand," Thabeet said at last month's draft combine, "I had to make a transition from soccer to basketball, from just kicking it and you're not allowed to touch it, to now you're allowed to touch it, but you're not allowed to kick it."

This is where the draft has delivered us, to a center who is as good as it gets, even as he still is learning how to put the ball in the basket.

"I think that, maybe, my offense needs to improve," he said. "But I think that if I'm not going to go to your end and score, then you are not going to come to my end to score."