Only Surprise in the NBA Draft Is the Big Demand for Guards

The Washington Bullets went small. The Atlanta Hawks went global. The Lakers went Hollywood. Reggie Miller went to Indiana.

The Clippers went for all the help they could get.

And although the San Antonio Spurs, as expected, went for Navy center David Robinson, the surprise of the National Basketball Assn. draft Monday was the number of teams that went for guards.

Six of the first 12 players taken in the first round were guards, as compared to two of the first dozen a year ago. Ten guards in all were taken in the first round, and of the first 27 picks, 13 were guards and 4 were centers.

There were big guards, such as Georgetown’s Reggie Williams, who was the fourth player taken in the draft and the first by the Clippers.

There were tiny guards, such as Wake Forest’s 5-foot 3-inch Tyrone Bogues, who leaped far beyond projections when the Bullets made him the 12th pick of the first round. The Bullets already had the tallest player in the league in 7-6 Manute Bol. Now they have the shortest, too.

There were high-scoring guards, such as Ohio State’s Dennis Hopson, plucked No. 3 by the New Jersey Nets, and gunning guards, such as UCLA’s Miller, who went on the 11th pick to the Pacers.

There were three guards taken in the first round from the same high school : Bogues, Williams, and Northeastern’s Reggie Lewis, who was taken by the Boston Celtics with the next-to-last pick of the first round. All three went to Dunbar High School in Baltimore.

There were disappointed guards, such as Indiana’s Steve Alford, who lasted until the Dallas Mavericks took him in the second round and wondered why his home-state Pacers had preferred Miller.

“Where (Miller) fits in with the Pacers, I don’t understand,” Alford said. “It’s a shame I couldn’t play there.”

There also was one guard-forward who spent last summer shooting with bottle caps taped to the palm of his hands in an effort to improve his fingertip touch.

That would be St. John’s Willie (Hollywood) Glass, who, if he could shoot better, would not have lasted until the 69th pick of the third round, when the Lakers made him their first choice of the draft.

As it was, Laker General Manager Jerry West didn’t expect Glass to be around that long. West likened the 6-6, 210-pound Glass to another Laker who was a third-round draft choice in 1978.

“He’s a swing guy, a Michael Cooper type, only bigger and stronger,” West said Monday from the Forum, where he made the Laker selections and relayed them to broadcaster Chick Hearn, who was representing the team in New York.

“He doesn’t have Cooper’s offensive skills, but he’s a fine athlete.”

Glass, who wears a gold chain with the word Hollywood hanging from his neck, also has something of Cooper’s defensive reputation. In games the last two seasons against UCLA, for example, Glass shut down Miller both times, limiting him to fewer than 10 points on each occasion.

“I was delighted he was drafted by the Lakers,” said St. John’s Coach Lou Carnesecca. “I think he fits in perfectly with them. He jumps out of the building, and he’s very strong.”

Glass, who averaged 16.6 points for the Redmen last season, will also be hard-pressed to make the Lakers, considering that James Worthy and Billy Thompson, the Lakers’ No. 1 pick a year ago, are ahead of him at the small forward position.

Thompson underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee Monday. No cartilage or ligament damage was found, the team said, but Thompson has a bruised kneecap. He will be re-examined in a couple of weeks.

With their fourth-round pick, the Lakers selected Glass’ one-time high school teammate, 6-1 guard Ralph Tally of Norfolk State in Virginia. Tally, who averaged 28.5 points a game, was the NCAA Division II player of the year last season.

Some teams still thought big. Phoenix used the second pick in the draft to choose 6-9 1/2, 248-pound power forward Armon Gilliam of Nevada Las Vegas. Seattle took Alabama forward Derrick McKey ninth; Chicago grabbed Clemson’s 6-10 Horace Grant 10th; and the Clippers took North Carolina’s 6-11 Joe Wolf with their second choice of the first round, 13th overall.

Golden State took 6-10 forward Tellis Frank from Western Kentucky; Utah took 6-10 center Jose Ortiz, the Pac-10 player of the year, from Oregon State; and Philadelphia selected 7-footer Christian Welp of Washington.

But no one thought bigger than the Atlanta Hawks. After staying within national borders on their first two picks--6-9 forward Dallas Comegys of DePaul and 6-2 guard Terrence Bailey of Wagner--the Hawks drafted:

--Song Tao, Chinese national team.

--Theofantis Christodouluo, Greece.

--Jose Antonio-Montero, Spain.

--Ricardo Morandoti, Italy.

--Franjo Arapovic, Yugoslavia.

Song, a 6-10, 235-pounder, played on a team that recently toured the United States.

“He’s more for the future,” said Rick Kaner, the Hawks’ international consultant.

Kaner said he had no statistics on Song, but that he was “mobile, moves well, is very strong physically and is a good insider scorer. He’s similar to Scott Hastings.”

Hastings is an Atlanta second-stringer.

As usual, there also were several trades Monday. The Seattle SuperSonics drafted this year’s sleeper, 6-7 forward Scottie Pippen of the University of Central Arkansas, with the fifth pick of the first round, then traded his rights to Chicago for the rights to former Virginia center Olden Polynice, who was the eighth player chosen.

Seattle also acquired a second-round pick in 1988 or 1989 and the option to swap first-round picks with the Bulls in 1988 or 1989 as long as they don’t involve one of the first three picks.

The Bulls also re-acquired center Artis Gilmore, who will be 38 on Sept. 21, from the Spurs for a second-round draft choice in ’88. Gilmore was a Bull for six seasons, from 1976-77 through the ‘81-82 season.

Portland unloaded guard Jim Paxson, the team’s all-time leading scorer, to Cleveland for backup center-forward Keith Lee. Paxson, unhappy as a back-up, had asked to be traded.

And Milwaukee traded its No. 1 pick from last season, guard Scott Skiles, to the Pacers for a second-round choice in 1989. It will be a homecoming for Skiles, an Indiana native who played just 13 games for the Bucks because of a back injury.

The prize of the draft, of course, remains Robinson, who had brunch with Vice President George Bush Monday morning, then played in a charity golf tournament in Washington that afternoon.

“I’m trying to keep an open mind about it,” Robinson said of his selection by the Spurs.

“I hope to go down to San Antonio and look around, get to know the organization, and see the people in charge. I don’t want to make any decisions right away.”

THE FIRST ROUND

Team Player Pos. School 1. San Antonio David Robinson C Navy 2. Phoenix Armon Gilliam C Nevada Las Vegas 3. New Jersey Dennis Hopson G Ohio State 4. Clippers Reggie Williams G-F Georgetown 5. Seattle Scottie Pippen G-F Central Arkansas 6. Sacramento Kenny Smith G North Carolina 7. Cleveland Kevin Johnson G California 8. Chicago Olden Polynice F-C Virginia 9. Seattle Derrick McKey F Alabama 10. Chicago Horace Grant F Clemson 11. Indiana Reggie Miller F UCLA 12. Washington Tyrone Bogues G Wake Forest 13. Clippers Joe Wolf F North Carolina 14. Golden State Tellis Frank F Western Kentucky 15. Utah Jose Ortiz F-C Oregon State 16. Philadelphia Christian Welp C Washington 17. Portland Ronnie Murphy G Jacksonville 18. New York Mark Jackson G St. John’s 19. Clippers Ken Norman F Illinois 20. Dallas Jim Farmer G Alabama 21. Atlanta Dallas Comegys F DePaul 22. Boston Reggie Lewis G-F Northeastern 23. San Antonio Greg Anderson F Houston

CLIPPER PICKS

1. Reggie Williams, G-F, Georgetown; 1. Joe Wolf, F, North Carolina; 1. Ken Norman, F, Illinois; 2. Norris Coleman, F, Kansas State; 3. Tim McCalister, G, Oklahoma; 5 Chad Kessler, F, Georgia; 6. Martin Nessley, C, Duke; 7. Henry Carr, F, Wichita State.

(Number indicates round chosen)

LAKER PICKS

3. Willie Glass, G-F, St. John’s; 4. Ralph Tally, G, Norfolk State; 5. Kenny Travis, G, New Mexico State; 6. Frank Ford, G, Auburn; 7. Ron Vanderschaaf, F, Central Washington.

(Number indicates round chosen)