Fancy Passing Is in Hands of Miglinieks

With UC Irvine’s Raimonds Miglinieks, what you don’t see is what gets you.

Ask the defenders who only hear the basketball as it whizzes past their ears on the way to Kevin Simmons’ waiting hands before proceeding to its ultimate destination, the basket. Or ask an unsuspecting teammate who was looking elsewhere when the ball bounced off his nose.

“Until you get used to it, playing with him must mean playing with stubbed fingers and black eyes,” marveled Chris Wallace, a scout for the Miami Heat. “If you’re not always vigilant, you’ll get it in the side of the head for sure.

“He has such great court vision and anticipation and on this level he gets saddled with other people’s turnovers. I’ll bet half of his turnovers could’ve been assists if people had just caught the ball.”

Miglinieks’ passes seem to have cruise-missile technology that allows them to weave through a host of obstacles en route to their target. Those darts have impressed NBA scouts, awed opposing coaches, wowed fans and made him No. 1 in the nation in assists with an 8.6 average. And they also have played a huge role in Irvine’s ascension out of the muck at the bottom of the Big West standings and into the rarefied air of contending for a conference title.

There’s really no secret, Miglinieks says. It’s just a matter of passing the ball when no one else in the building expects it.

“Guys play the way they’re taught to play and they expect the ball at certain times, like when their player comes off a screen,” Miglinieks said. “But I play against logic. I just look at the defensive guy, and if he’s not seeing me, I pass the ball. I don’t even bother to look at Kevin or Brian [Keefe].

“It usually takes offensive players time to adjust to me, but Kevin and Brian did it very fast.”

But what about a year from now? Will David Robinson or Shaquille O’Neal be learning to expect the unexpected from Miglinieks?

“Will he be drafted? If I knew that, I’d be in Las Vegas,” says Marty Blake, NBA director of scouting. “I’m supposed to be the guru, but I don’t know for sure. It’s my job to make sure everyone is aware of him and everybody knows him. Everybody’s seen him and everybody will see him again.

“I’ll say this, there’s not a lot out there, especially in terms of point guards, and you have to draft somebody. We’re looking for talent and we’re talking about a key position here. Whether he gets drafted or not, somebody will give him a chance.”

There is little doubt Miglinieks could find and hit the open man in the NBA, making a lot of offenses more efficient in the process. But there are some who wonder if his quickness is sufficient to play defense in the NBA, if there is such a thing.

“He definitely has to work on his defense,” Milwaukee Buck scout Scott Wissle said. “He’s just quick enough to hold his own on this level, but the NBA is a whole different level.”

Miglinieks believes the perception that he is slow is based on a bias created by his build. At 6 feet 3 and 200 pounds with wide shoulders, he looks more like a hockey player than a guy headed for the NBA.

“I’m sort of big, so I think I don’t look so fast from the side,” he said, smiling. “But at the same time, you see me break most guys down with the dribble, don’t you?

“I know everybody says that defense may be my biggest problem, but nobody in the NBA is going to stop Michael Jordan or many others one on one. You play defense as a team. And I’m always working on my defense, learning to be in the right place at the right time, and trying to improve my speed and strength. I know I can improve.”

Blake thinks some of the league’s scouts put too much emphasis on speed and quickness, anyway.

“They question his speed, sure, but they also questioned Larry Bird’s speed,” he said. “It’s just not that much of a factor. He’s got a special knack for delivering the ball and that’s hard to find.

“I’ve always got [college] coaches telling me about their great little two guard who we can turn into a point guard. Why the hell would they think that? These guys aren’t going to learn that position in the NBA. Point guards are born, not made.”

Others question Miglinieks’ ability to get off his set-shot three-pointer in the big leagues, but he doesn’t think it’s an issue. He never worries about cozying up to the three-point stripe now, and probably takes about a third of his three-point shots from NBA range. He has made 40% of his three-pointers this season.

“I’m very comfortable with NBA range and I’m confident I can make the open shot,” he said. “Maybe Reggie Miller shoots over people for threes, but most of those guys who make threes in the NBA, they are wide open.”

Blake is in total agreement on that point.

“He’s got a funny shot, but it goes in, so I don’t care how he shoots it,” Blake said. “Most the guys coming out of college these days can’t shoot at all. All they want to do is make those playground dunks.”

Irvine Coach Rod Baker says the pro team that picks up Miglinieks--whether it’s in the NBA or in Europe--will find that they have acquired more than a great passer and a good shooter. They will have a thinker, a guy to go to in the crunch and a winner.

“We no longer talk about the specifics of exact things to do at exact times,” Baker said. “We just talk in philosophical terms about what we would like to accomplish against a team. Raimonds is very clear in his role.

“And the guy makes big plays all the time. You don’t even notice it anymore. He wants the ball in clutch situations. He wants to dictate how things will go.”

Miglinieks’ role tends to vary from night to night because of his take-whatever-they’re-giving approach to the game. When Irvine beat Nevada in Reno Jan. 25, the Wolf Pack decided to sag in on the Anteater post players and shut down the passing lanes. So Miglinieks took 15 shots, made six of 10 three-pointers, scored 27 points and had only two assists. A week later during a victory over UC Santa Barbara, when the Gauchos played him tight and denied the open shots, he took eight shots, scored eight points and had 11 assists.

“Some guys just need to score and some guys need to rebound,” Baker said. “Raimonds just needs to win.”

Miglinieks, a native of Riga, Latvia, who served a two-year stint in the Red Army, will be 26 when the next NBA season begins. That’s considerably older than your average rookie. But most agree that won’t be a deciding factor in his future.

“Any time a player has accomplished what he has and has such a clearly pronounced strength, people will look very closely at him,” Wallace said. “How he performs in postseason all-star situations against the best players and how he fares in the summer leagues will be crucial to whether or not he gets drafted.”

Miglinieks will be forced to make a decision about whether to take the immediate financial rewards of playing professionally in Europe or trying to make an NBA team. At the moment, however, he apparently has no doubts about what he wants.

“The NBA is the best level of basketball in the world and if I have the chance, I will take it,” he said. “My wife [Krista] likes it very much here in the United States and it would be hard for her to go back to Europe and start over.

“I’ll do my maximum to get to the NBA and we’ll see if I’m good enough and they will take me. If not, not. That’s life. Then I’ll go back to Europe and play somewhere else.”

If that happens, it may save a few NBA big men jammed fingers and red faces, but it could deprive NBA fans of a lot of ooohs and ahhhs and the late-night news some spectacular highlights.

“This guy has a special gift,” Blake said. “He’s a terrific player and really fun to watch. He’ll get every chance to show what he can do.”