The amount of Uconn players I've ever liked are few and far between...Thabeet is one of em..
UConn's Hasheem Thabeet is not your average 7-3 guy
Posted: July 30, 2008
To explain how far Hasheem Thabeet has traveled as a basketball player, you could start in Tanzania, the place of his birth. That would be intriguing, butit only conveys his long journey to play the game in a circumstance where he can learn, improve and test himself against the best competition among players hisage.
You could go back to his first days as a freshman at Connecticut, when he'd run up and down the court like Asafa Powell but stumble around the lane likeWill Ferrell. That would be entertaining, but it only suggests he once was fearful -- not that one day he might become fearsome.
No, the best place to gofor an understanding of how profoundly Thabeet has improved is inside the mind of the point guard whose job it is to get him the basketball. A.J. Price ran theUConn offense last season, when the 7-3 Thabeet averaged 10.5 points and shot 60.3 percent from the floor as a sophomore center. Price says he frequentlyhesitated to throw an entry pass to Thabeet, even when he had perfect post-up position with a defender at his back and no double-team in sight.
"I had to think twice: time, game situation, score. Because you wouldn't always get the best result," Price says. "Hasheem's hungerto go get the ball is different than last year. I just see a total difference. He demands the ball. You almost have to throw it to him."
Price, recovering from surgery to repair a torn ACL, hasn't been throwing those passes in UConn's summer pickup games. But he watches Huskies guardJerome Dyson toss lobs toward the rim, just like the Orlando Magic do for star center Dwight Howard. And he sees Thabeet grabbing the ball with hissnowshoe-size mitts and stuffing it in the basket.
It's a picture of the one player who might block what many perceive to be an inevitable, inexorable march by the North Carolina Tar Heelstoward the 2009 NCAA championship. Thabeet's ascent could make the Huskies the team best equipped to challenge Carolina.
"We're on a mission for a national championship, but we've got to win games first," Thabeet says, his deep voice tinted with a distinctiveaccent. "Right now, we're working hard to get to Detroit and play in the Final Four. We're not thinking about, 'Yeah, we're going to win anational championship.' How are we going to get there? That's what we're thinking about."
Though the story of how Thabeet came to play basketball in America isn't uncommon, it's still pretty amazing. He played soccer as a boy in Dar esSalaam and wasn't introduced to the sport that would change his life until he was 15. He quickly showed a talent for the game and embraced the suggestionit might help him come to the United States and advance his education. He began e-mailing coaches here and eventually wound up at Cypress Community Christian,a high school near Houston. He went from project to prospect to player in a blur.
Although home seems far away now, Thabeet has returned to Tanzania each of the past two offseasons. He was back in May for three weeks, even though thatmeant sacrificing some of the weight and strength gains he had made; he had gotten up to 278 but dropped 12 pounds and is working to get that back and addmore. But the trip gave him the opportunity to attend the Sullivan Summit, an annual gathering of world government and political leaders designed to examinehow Africa can improve and enrich itself and its people.
Thabeet's basketball success has earned him an appointment as a "sports ambassador" for Tanzania. "There were a lot of presidents fromEurope (at the summit); Jesse Jackson (was there)," he says. "I got to meet all of them. It was great."
Thabeet believes he eventually will return to live in Tanzania, but he can't even bring himself now to say he misses home.
"Because over here there's a lot of opportunity," Thabeet says. "There's a lot of things you can do more than in Tanzania. People Iwent to school with, they don't have jobs. They're just over there hanging out. I don't think it's a good place at all for somebody that'snot ... the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor."
After each of Thabeet's first two seasons at UConn, the mock draft types predicted he would enter the NBA draft so he could help out his familyfinancially. But Thabeet is serious about his game. He is trying not just to make money but to make it big.
Thabeet is rare among today's collegians in that he actually heeded the advice of his college coaches to spend another year in Division I. Now hisexpected advancement as a scorer and the obvious dearth of talent in the next draft are leading to his being projected as a top five pick.
Thabeet watched the June draft and admits to being "amazed at who got drafted." He figures his chances of getting selected early were quite good,"but at the end of the day, I thought I made a wise decision. Things are going to work out for me."
Huskies assistant coach Patrick Sellers once told the story that when Thabeet first arrived at UConn, he believed extra work after practice was reserved forpunishing slackers. Thabeet had to be convinced of the need to spend extra time improving, kind of like a first-semester student who must learn it helps topull the occasional all-nighter.
That's no longer an issue. For the second straight summer, Thabeet attended the LeBron James Skills Academy and showed evidence of an offseason spentattacking the weaknesses in his game. He admits to being nervous at the camp last summer because of "all this big exposure" in competing againsteventual first-round choices Brook Lopez, his twin brother, Robin, and Jason Thompson of Rider. "This year, I came out and played basketball,"Thabeet says. "I know I can do a lot of stuff that I worked on, and I came out and showed it."
ESPN basketball analyst Jay Bilas, who coached the college big men at the LeBron camp, is impressed by how well Thabeet accepts coaching. "He looks youin the eye," Bilas says. "And he's competitive. He never shied away from anything.
"I think he could be a better pro than a college player, and I rarely say this. They're all or mostly man-to-man in that league, so he's notgoing to get crowded like he does in a college game."
The biggest obstacle for Thabeet has been getting comfortable on offense when defenders are muscling him. Because he is so big, most opponents have littlechoice but to hope physical play will deter him. As his lower body grows stronger, as his confidence blooms, that tactic becomes less effective.
"A lot of people were saying he would go to the league, but knowing Hasheem, I never expected him to make the jump knowing he wasn't ready,"Price says. "He works so hard, wants to be so good. He didn't want to go to the NBA coming off somebody's bench playing a few minutes a game.
"He wants to be great. That's what really separates him from everybody else. He's not your average 7-3 guy."
...I honestly believe if he continues his improvement... he's your #1 pick in09..
...
And this kid has gone under the radar for McD AA...he'll end up better than Hendrix..
For Tide to rise again, Green must be golden
Posted: July 28, 2008
He knew exactly what was coming, and still it struck him with the force of an elbow to the sternum. JaMychal Green watched the NBA draft long enough to hearthe words, "Richard Hendrix, forward, University of Alabama," spoken from the podium, and with them, his role for his freshman season with theCrimson Tide changed profoundly.
"The coaches called me and they asked me, Was I ready?" Green says. "I told them I'm ready to step up." Alabama has not been to theNCAA Tournament since Ronald Steele was Ronald Steele -- before a series of knee injuries rendered him diminished (2006-07) and redshirted (2007-0
. Alabamais not going back unless Steele again is a high-level point guard.
But without Green to stabilize the Tide frontcourt, even a resurgence by Steele toAll-American form probably would not return Alabama basketball to relevance and eliminate the premature (but, these days, inevitable) speculation regardingcoach Mark Gottfried's job security.
And thus Green will enter the season as the most important freshman in Division I. He probably won't be the best, and he certainly won't be theflashiest. Green is a 6-9, 225-pound power forward with a lot of energy, but he's no high flier. With Hendrix deciding three years of college hoops and anAlabama degree were enough, though, Green became the essential figure in the Tide frontcourt.
"He plays really hard, very active, has got quick feet," Gottfried says. "He's one of those guys when the ball is up on the backboard,he's going after it every time. He wants to win. He's been a part of a lot of winning, so he's used to that."
As a McDonald's All American at Montgomery's St. Jude, Green -- call him J-Mike -- was the star of two state championship teams. From the first dayof practice July 1 until the gold medal game of the U-18 FIBA Americas Championship nearly three weeks later, he was the best frontcourt player for the UnitedStates' junior national team.
On a team that went 4-1 and lost a road game to Argentina for the championship, Green tied for second in scoring and was first in rebounding and blocks.Given that he was limited to about 16 minutes a game because of foul trouble and the coaches' desire to keep players fresh, his averages in thosecategories were amazing: 11.0, 8.4, 2.2.
Even more astounding was his 72.4 percent shooting, which suggested he a) knows exactly what shots he can make and b) could have afforded to launch a fewmore.
He is more of a stick-back guy than a polished, back-to-the-basket low-post scorer, but he regularly finishes plays because of his tenacity. Alabama willneed him to rank among the SEC's top rebounders, and he probably will.
"I like the physical aspect of the game," Green says. "I like to bang. I'll bring energy. I'll set the tempo. And I'll make openshots when they need me to." Green chose Alabama because he wanted to attend college close to home. He'd rather be somewhere else, though, in March ofhis freshman year.
..
A shame Gottfried can't coach.
