The top NBA draft prospects view this week’s league-sponsored tryout camp in Chicago as a game of blackjack.
They’ve got 20–and are more than happy to stick.
Of the eight premier players who attended a downtown news conference Monday, in fact, seven won’t play when workouts get underway Tuesday. As at the card table, these players point out, it’s awfully hard to lose if you don’t play.
The athletes currently on top are pragmatic about this pre-draft camp: With a poor performance or an injury, their stock can drop. With a strong performance, their stock probably can’t rise much. They really have little to gain and lots to lose by playing, both in prestige and salary.
“I don’t think there’s a need to play,” said North Carolina’s Jerry Stackhouse, a prized forward in the June 28 draft. “Everybody’s projecting me to be in the top picks, so the only way I could go is to fall.”
Said Cherokee Parks, Duke’s highly regarded center: “I think that everybody projected ahead of me is etched in stone. There was more downside than upside to playing.”
But while the practice has become an accepted ritual, it still is troubling to many league and team officials. Observers point out that several players have helped themselves or hurt themselves in past NBA drafts by their presence or absence at the camp, especially athletes on the top-10 bubble.
Scottie Pippen, for instance, soared to fifth overall in the 1987 draft by playing. Wesley Person dropped to 23rd last year after skipping.
“It’s their problem,” Marty Blake, the NBA’s director of scouting, said of players who don’t take part. “They’re afraid to play. Why wouldn’t you want to show that you can play?”
Bulls General Manager Jerry Krause said teams want to evaluate players against other top prospects. He noted that clubs deserve to know what they are getting, and that the players essentially are skipping job interviews.
“You’d like everybody to play,” he said. “You’d like everybody to lay it on the line, and you admire the kids who do it. But the reality of it today is that the higher kids don’t.”
The draft camp actually began Saturday, with physical examinations and strength tests. More than 70 players have been in attendance.
Real basketball workouts, held at the Moody Bible Institute, begin Tuesday afternoon. The camp continues Wednesday, with more drills and three games.
DePaul’s Tom Kleinschmidt will be there, along with Michigan’s Jimmy King and Michigan State’s Eric Snow. Illinois-Chicago’s Sherell Ford won’t play, and neither will Wisconsin’s Michael Finley or Michigan State’s Shawn Respert.
Scouts and coaches from every NBA team attend the sessions, hoping to get one last sense of a player’s competitive skills. But most of the top players, for a variety of reasons, will leave Chicago Tuesday morning.
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Rasheed Wallace, North Carolina’s talented center, will visit family and friends in Philadelphia. Stackhouse will go back to classes in Chapel Hill.
Bryant Reeves, a center out of Oklahoma State, said professional teams have had plenty of time to gauge his value. Reeves is satisfied with his projected draft slot, probably between eighth and 12th.
“I think going to the Final Four and everything, I got a lot of exposure,” he said. “My stock’s pretty high right now, and I wouldn’t want to hurt that.”
Both Maryland forward Joe Smith and Alabama forward Antonio McDyess prefer to work out for individual teams. Smith, who could be the first pick overall, said he doesn’t need to prove himself in game situations.
“Once I go work out for the teams, they’ll see me individually,” Smith said of upcoming visits to NBA cities. “I don’t feel that I have to show that I can play.”
Of those players who attended Monday’s news conference, only Wisconsin center Rashard Griffith plans to participate Tuesday and Wednesday. Griffith, who starred at King High School, said he wants to play against NBA-caliber competition.
But Griffith, who some observers question as a top-10 pick, stands to improve his stock. The other blue-chippers won’t take that risk.
UCLA forward Ed O’Bannon, asked why he wouldn’t play this week, put it most simply: “Why not? Why?”