Opposite paths for Gay, Thomas
posted: Monday, April 17, 2006

Today brings big announcements from UConn's Rudy Gay and LSU's Tyrus Thomas. How will they affect the draft?

Six months ago, it seemed a foregone conclusion that Gay not only would declare for the draft but would also be considered a front-runner for the No. 1 pick.

Gay's announcement that he's declaring for the draft and hiring an agent, ending his college eligibility, is the easy part.

Becoming the No. 1 pick in the draft? Gay may have a much harder time pulling that off.

While NBA scouts believe that Gay has the most potent combination of athleticism and skill in the draft, everyone still wonders why he doesn't use it more regularly.

Gay had a solid sophomore season for UConn, but he never became the dominant player scouts thought he could be. With his length, strength and perimeter skills, scouts imagined that Gay would become a lethal inside-outside threat. After a dominant 28-point performance against Arkansas at the Maui Classic in November a number of scouts and NBA executives declared him the No. 1 prospect in the draft.

What happened? After the Arkansas game, Gay never scored more than 22 points, and he cracked the 20-point mark just six times. He spent most of his time on the court as a complementary player, hanging out on the perimeter waiting for someone to kick it to him for an open jumper. Gay rarely put the ball on the floor or posted up smaller defenders. When his 3-point shot failed him (he shot just 32 percent from 3-point land this year, down from 47 percent last season), his confidence seemed to wane.

Gay did get more aggressive toward the end of the season. In the NCAA tournament, he put up good numbers against Kentucky and George Mason ... but he wasn't dominant the way that players like Joakim Noah and Thomas were. Toward the end of each UConn game, it was Marcus Williams, Denham Brown and Rashard Anderson leading the charge. Gay looked like a bystander.

That concerns NBA scouts, who are asking one key question about Gay: Does he have the desire and aggression necessary to be a great NBA player, or is he the second coming of Tim Thomas, an amazing talent without the motor it takes to be dominant in the pros?

That question explains Gay's declining draft stock. Still, scouts are saying that Gay is a lock for the top 10 because at some point someone is going to gamble on the talent.

Then again, scouts said the same thing about Pittsburgh's Chris Taft last year until about two weeks before the draft.

Gay doesn't have some of the problems that Taft did -- Gay has an excellent work ethic, is a model citizen off the court and stays in great shape. But if he doesn't come in and compete at a high level in workouts, will he slip? Over the past few years a great motor has become more and more valuable to scouts. Gay still hasn't shown it.

Gay ranks at No. 8 on our big board. But we'll be watching him closely for workout feedback. If he works out great (and he has all the tools to do it), he'll probably rise. However, in one-on-one workouts he better compete hard or he also faces the risk of slipping further.

The other guy declaring, Tyrus Thomas, is the Bizarro version of Rudy Gay. While Gay was the consensus No. 1 pick on the preseason draft boards of most scouts, Thomas wasn't in the Top 100. After a redshirt season at LSU last year, no one expected Thomas to deliver the way he did. By January, scouts were referring to Thomas as a potential lottery pick for next year. By late January, they had moved up the timetable -- now he's a potential top-five pick this year.

After a dominating performance in the NCAA tournament against Duke and Texas, Thomas is now considered by a number of scouts to be the top prospect in the draft. If Joakim Noah sticks to his guns and returns to Florida, the possibility that Thomas goes No. 1 increases dramatically.

While Thomas' offensive numbers on the court aren't as good as Gay's, defensively he was awesome, averaging 9.2 rpg and 3.1 bpg in just 25 mpg. Thomas, like Gay, is long and super-athletic, with a body that is beginning to fill out. However, unlike Gay, Thomas has a motor that runs nonstop.

Thomas flies up and down the floor, plays aggressive defense, is always crashing the glass and has an emerging offensive game that includes a sweet 15-foot jump shot.

While it's clear that Thomas is still raw, especially on the offensive end, scouts feel that taking a player with those tools and with that motor is a low-risk scenario.

Big, athletic prospects flop in the NBA every year, but they rarely do when they play as hard as Thomas.

If the draft were held today, the Bulls, Warriors, Rockets and Hornets would all be leaning toward taking Thomas No. 1 if they won the lottery. If Noah stays out of the draft, you could add the Blazers and Timberwolves to that mix as well.

Barring some sort of injury or background problem that would come up when NBA teams investigate more closely, there aren't many scenarios where Thomas slips out of the top five.

The only reason we dont have a shot at Ty is because of our gay Thomas