 Hasheem Thabeet will be one of the best players in college basketball next season, writes Mike DeCourcy. |
To explain how far Hasheem Thabeet has traveled as a basketball player, you could start in Tanzania, the place of his birth. That would be intriguing, but it only conveys his long journey to play the game in a circumstance where he can learn, improve and test himself against the best competition among players his age.
You could go back to his first days as a freshman at Connecticut, when he'd run up and down the court like Asafa Powell but stumble around the lane like Will Ferrell. That would be entertaining, but it only suggests he once was fearful -- not that one day he might become fearsome.
No, the best place to go for an understanding of how profoundly Thabeet has improved is inside the mind of the point guard whose job it is to get him the basketball. A.J. Price ran the UConn offense last season, when the 7-3 Thabeet averaged 10.5 points and shot 60.3 percent from the floor as a sophomore center. Price says he frequently hesitated to throw an entry pass to Thabeet, even when he had perfect post-up position with a defender at his back and no double-team in sight.
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