NBA Scouts Are Learning to Think Small

Stu Inman admits it has taken a while, but National Basketball Assn. scouts and general managers have finally realized the wisdom of thinking small.

“Our thought process has changed a bit,” said Inman, the director of player personnel for the Miami Heat. “I remember how we used to look at guys like Michael Adams and Spud Webb, how we laughed at them and said they couldn’t play at our level.”

Well, they’re not laughing now. They’re too busy scouring the nation for the next great little point guard and trying to make certain they don’t repeat some of their recent, egregious mistakes. Michael Adams wasn’t too slow after all. Mark Price wasn’t too frail. Mark Jackson wasn’t too slow.

But scouts missed badly on all of them, and no one wants to miss again. That’s why, when they come to Madison Square Garden this week for the Big East tournament, the scouts and general managers will keep an especially vigilant eye on five seniors who compose the best collection of NBA point guard prospects to come out of the conference in years.

The five are Syracuse’s Sherman Douglas, Boston College’s Dana Barros, Georgetown’s Charles Smith, Seton Hall’s John Morton and Villanova’s Kenny Wilson.

“None of the small guards in college basketball today are going to make an immediate impression,” said Marty Blake, the NBA’s director of scouting, “but this is the best year in memory for the little guards.”

“I think we’re clearly going to see more guards taken in the first round this year than we’ve ever had,” Inman said. “But it’s the old question. Can he lead? Does he make the four players around him better?”

That, more than size, is the issue now. Just because a player is 6-foot and talented doesn’t mean he can run an NBA team. It doesn’t mean he’s a true point guard. Those are hard to find, and as George Irvine says, it’s not getting any easier.

“Point guards are sort of like centers now,” said Irvine, the personnel director (and briefly this season, coach) of the Indiana Pacers. “It’s hard to find the point guard mentality. I think as scouts we’re tougher on point guard prospects than any other position. If he comes down and scores 24, we say he shoots too much. If he runs his team and doesn’t score, we say he’s not enough of a scorer.”

As a whole, the Big East guards fall in the former category. “Are they true point guards?” Blake said. “I don’t know, it’s hard to tell. Why? Because they’re all shooting guards. They’re playing the point, but they’re shooting.”

One thing that became clear from talking with scouts and general managers is that the 6-foot Douglas, the NCAA’s career assist leader, is the purest point guard of the lot and likely to be the Big East point guard selected highest in the draft. Still, most believe he won’t go in the top 10.

“I doubt that,” New Jersey Nets General Manager Harry Weltman said. “There are too many other good players out there. . . . There are certain areas of his game people might question, like his free-throw shooting.”

Indiana, a likely lottery participant, is desperate for a point guard and might consider Douglas with a late lottery pick. But even they have doubts. “I’ve been very confused about him,” Irvine said, “because 90% of the time he plays really well at the point, but all of a sudden he goes haywire.”

Irvine has a somewhat different view of the 6-foot, 150-pound Smith, the Big East’s player of the year. “He hits the big shots at the end,” Irvine said, “but I don’t like the other 38 minutes. He’s not a point guard. He wasn’t one for the Olympic team and that’s where they really struggled.”

The scouts seem genuinely intrigued by Barros, the 5-11 Boston College guard who led the conference in scoring the last two years. “He’s a very good player,” said Dick McGuire, the New York Knicks’ scouting director. “He’s a scorer in a point guard’s body.”

Blake said he was convinced that Barros could handle the point and “ought to be able to play in this league.”

“I’ve talked to (Boston College Coach) Jimmy O’Brien about Barros,” Irvine said, “and it’d be ludicrous for him not to be shooting. How else are they going to score? It’s the same rap they put on Mark Price. Dana’s really only 5-9, but if a guy can play at that size, it doesn’t matter.”

As for Villanova’s 5-9 Wilson, who entered the season with a legitimate chance at being selected in the NBA’s two-round draft, the scouts have basically decided he can’t play at that level. “Kenny hasn’t had that good a year,” McGuire said. “I don’t think he’ll be drafted.”

Seton Hall’s 6-3 Morton was a prodigious high school scorer who never quite made the transition to the point. The Pirates, in fact, emerged after deciding he was better suited to the off guard. But to make the pros--and scouts think he has a shot at being selected in the first round--he’ll have to play the point.

“Those are the tough questions,” Inman said. “It’s not what a player is, but what he can become, what you see in his emotional and physical makeup that will allow him to grow. The $64,000 question is, Which ones have the ceilings over their heads, and which have the most upside?”

And, as the scouts have discovered, it’s often a case of the smaller the player, the higher the ceiling.