Arizona's season now rests on Gardner improving

Sporting News, The, June 25, 2001 by Mike DeCourcy

Around the Arizona offices, point guard Jason Gardner's abortive journey into the NBA draft is being viewed as a "basketball vacation."

Some people on vacation jet-ski their way into broken legs. Gardner shot 6-of-28 at the NBA Pre-Draft Camp.

Gardner waited just four days after the camp was over to withdraw from the June 27 draft and return to Arizona for his junior season. In his 62 days as a quasi-professional, he gained some muscle and the experience of competing with others pursuing NBA goals, but he widely was identified as the player whose presence at the Chicago camp bore no logical explanation.

"About everybody I talked to basically said he needed to go back," NBA draft analyst Chris Monter says. "He's not ready."

Gardner will benefit from continuing his college career, but only if he avoids returning to the Wildcats disheartened and defeated--or with a focus on proving himself instead of his team.

Gardner was particularly emphatic when he said in Chicago, "My whole intention in coming here is not going back to school." He wrestled with the reality of his situation for two months. His choice not to conduct interviews after announcing his return suggests he was not at ease with the resolution.

Except for key reserve Luke Walton, likely to become a starter at one forward spot, Gardner will be breaking in a new group of teammates. The Wildcats will need the leadership and direction an experienced point guard can deliver. But just as Gardner spent three games at Chicago chucking shots in an ill-conceived attempt to command the scouts' attention, he could spend next season trying to inflate his scoring average.

This would be disastrous not only for Arizona, but Gardner. If the Wildcats aren't a first-division Pac-10 team next season, Gardner will be held largely responsible, fair or not. The team will be accorded some slack for having lost four starters from its 2001 NCAA runner-up squad. But when the Wildcats experienced a similar exodus before the 1995-96 season, they snarled about being underrated all the way to the Preseason NIT title. They can't expect too much sympathy.

Gardner's coaches believe his primary weakness is an inability to break down defenders. That's surprising, given the key ingredients to that skill are quickness and ballhandling ability. Gardner has both, but most players his size (5-10, 175) learn to move laterally to avoid bigger players, and Gardner's feistiness leads him to continue charging ahead.

This is, in a sense, how he came to file for the draft. After averaging 11.7 points and 4.4 assists in two seasons with the Wildcats, Gardner convinced himself he was ready to move on. The more outsiders said this was foolish, the more determined he became to continue his course.

His appeal to NBA teams is limited because of his height. To overcome that, Gardner needs to demonstrate the extraordinary playmaking skill that worked for Brevin Knight. As a Stanford senior, Knight averaged 7.8 assists even while scoring 16.3 points. Gardner averaged only 4.1 assists and 10.9 points last year, then struggled horribly at the pre-draft camp.

In three games in Chicago, Gardner shot 2-of-15 on 3-pointers, passed for 12 assists and committed 10 turnovers. He demonstrated no feel for the pick-and-roll--the foundation of the NBA offense--and frequently failed to recognize developing opportunities after moving from behind teammates' screens. He rarely ran successful fastbreaks.

He can work to overcome those deficiencies at Arizona. Coach Lute Olson's track record of teaching point guards is unparalleled in the past decade. Three of the past four who held the position before Gardner were top 10 NBA draft picks (Damon Stoudamire, Mike Bibby, Jason Terry) and the past five played in the league (including Reggie Geary and Matt Othick). But only Bibby spent less than four years at Arizona.

If Gardner learned anything from his draft dalliance, it should be this: For some, the race to the NBA has shifted from a marathon to a sprint, but there still are no shortcuts.

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