TYRONE BOGUES : It’s an Uneven Rookie Season for Muggsy

Shortly after Tyrone (Muggsy) Bogues made his NBA debut against the Detroit Pistons in an exhibition game, Isiah Thomas was asked to assess the little Washington Bullet’s performance. “He’ll help them a lot,” Thomas said with a grin, “especially at playoff time.”

The comment, following Bogues’ 26-minute, four-point, six-assist performance, was a not-so-veiled reference to the first round of last season’s playoffs, when Thomas embarrassed the Bullets’ point guard contingent of Ennis Whatley, Michael Adams and Frank Johnson. Setting the tone for what would result in a three-game Pistons’ sweep, Thomas scored 34 points with 9 rebounds, 9 assists and 4 steals in Game 1. Although the Bullets held him to 15 points in the third game, Thomas still averaged more than 21 points, on 52% shooting, and 9 assists for the series.

But as the Bullets and Pistons meet in this season’s first-round encounter, the closest the 5-foot-4 Bogues is likely to get to Thomas is when the teams cross paths en route to their benches before the game.

An uneven season for Bogues, the Bullets’ first-round draft choice, may end with him planted near the end of the bench, wondering if the team will protect him in the summer’s expansion draft and conceding “it’s possible” the club may not.

Bogues was a starter for a time early in the season, yet the emergence of Darrell Walker in the final two weeks of the regular season relegated Bogues to fifth man among the guards. In the Bullets’ last eight games, he averaged only 6.8 minutes, twice not playing at all.

“The way things are going now, it looks like they’ve got other things in mind than Muggsy Bogues,” he said. “They’ve gone with a different rotation. I’m sure the coach has his reasons. When he feels he wants to play me he will. Right now I just have to stick it out and hope things turn around.”

Teammates Bernard King, Mark Alarie, Terry Catledge and Walker had to endure similar stretches of inactivity during the season. In each case, Coach Wes Unseld said it wasn’t because of something the player had done wrong but rather because of the good things accomplished by those who were getting most of the playing time.

“He’s had a good year, a typical rookie year,” Unseld said Tuesday of Bogues. “If you look at overall minutes, he probably got as many as most of the rookies in the league and he was probably as effective as most of them.”

Bogues played in 79 of 82 games, averaging 5 points and a team-leading 5.1 assists and 1.6 steals in 20.6 minutes. Of the nine other guards drafted in the first round last June, only Mark Jackson of the New York Knicks (13.6 points, 10.6 assists), Kenny Smith of Sacramento (13.8 points, 7 assists) and Kevin Johnson of Phoenix (9.2 points, 5 assists) had seasons that could be considered demonstrably superior to Bogues’.

“I wouldn’t say my year has been a failure,” Bogues said. “Mark went into a great situation, really a no-lose situation--a young team that really needed him. But not too many rookies had that. When I first came I was thrown out there in a style that I hadn’t really played before. In (a half-court offense) things fall a lot on the point guard. For a time things weren’t working, so they (the coaches) went with something else.”

The difference between Bogues’ season and those of most of the other NBA rookies is about eight to 12 inches. Bogues’ stature, and the fact he was taken with the 12th pick overall while Jackson, the sure rookie of the year, wasn’t taken until 18th, has made his year appear smaller as well.

“I don’t know if he’s judged harsher than other rookies but people do look at him more critically,” said Unseld. “There was always the question of if he could make it, then after he started playing, the question was how much could he succeed.”

Unseld concedes that the latter is still “a good question. It depends on the situation he’s put in. If we can create a good rebounding, fast-break team, then he can be great. That fits the things he does well. If that’s not the case, then things could be a struggle for him.”

For the last two seasons, Washington has ranked near the bottom of the NBA in rebounding, the block upon which the fast break is built. On the eve of the playoffs, Unseld declined to talk about the possibility of Bogues not being protected in the expansion draft. Bogues, though, knows that is a distinct possibility.