Fingleton shows potential to revive center position

Sporting News, The, July 26, 1999 by Mike DeCourcy

It took nearly two days of watching games at the adidas ABCD Camp to discover Neil Fingleton. There were more than 200 players in the gym at Fairleigh Dickinson that week, but it still doesn't say much for our crack reporting skills.

Fingleton stands 7-6. He should have been easy to spot. Once we knew to look for him, he was. And finding him was worth the minimal effort required.

All this says something more profound, though, about the nature of the college game in 1999: Bigger isn't as better as it used to be.

There was almost no buzz at the camp regarding Fingleton, who came to the U.S. from England and is attending Holy Name High in Worcester, Mass. PrepStars.com claims to be the only scouting service that ranked him among the top 50 seniors entering the summer. There is no savage recruiting war being waged.

Ohio State, Wake Forest, Holy Cross and Notre Dame are in pursuit, and Connecticut has to be a factor given that former Huskies star Tony Hanson helped bring Fingleton to the U.S. Other schools are starting to express interest, but it's not the sort of contagion developing around dynamic Alabama wing Gerald Wallace.

Fingleton's profile conjures images of Shawn Bradley's NBA failures, Gheorge Muresan's awkward impact and Manute Bol's shot-blocking sideshow.

Watch Fingleton play, though, and he presents a decidedly different picture. Physically, he is more imposing than any of his long-and-lean predecessors. He added 30 pounds in the past year to check in at 275. He has decent hands and runs the court shockingly well.

"I think the secret is that I've got relatively small feet," Fingleton says. "I only wear a 14."

At ABCD, his teammates had little use for a 7-6 center. The camp being largely an exercise in showing college coaches one's potential as a player, those in control of the ball saw no future in tossing it high enough for no one else but Fingleton to catch.

He attempted 48 shots in eight games, fewer than five others on his team, even though he shot 58.3 percent He was not chosen for the camp all-star game.

"The toughest thing has been just getting used to the game," Fingleton says. "When I played in Europe, it was a lot slower. Here, it's like up and down all the time."

NBA scouts at ABCD were far more enamored of Fingleton than their college counterparts. The pros have not learned to live without centers because there are enough left to force other teams to cope. The colleges have, in many respects, directed the center position to obsolescence.

The closest thing to a true center at the 1999 Final Four was Connecticut's Jake Voskuhl, but though he's tall enough and defends the position, he does not have the ideal post-up game.

The program that attracts Fingleton will most likely need to make adjustments to its approach, but he's an attractive prospect because he likely won't discombobulate his team the way a Bradley or Muresan does.

Ohio State coach Jim O'Brien demonstrated he isn't uncomfortable with big players by signing 7-3 Alek Radojevic last year before Radojevic was turned away from college by an NCAA eligibility ruling and opted to enter the NBA draft. Wake Forest had success developing Tim Duncan, which is appealing to Fingleton because he also came late to the game. "When I've read stories about him," Fingleton says, "I find things that he has done that I'm doing."

Fingleton did not start playing until three years ago, when a teacher back home suggested he play because of his height. He did not get serious about the game until the past 12 months.

He plays and works out daily, and if he misses a day, "It's like, `Today didn't feel right.'" His family and friends in England understand he's trying to improve his life, but he suspects they don't understand what is possible playing basketball in the U.S. He will earn a scholarship. He may become a first-round NBA pick. He may even revive the center position in college hoops.

"Considering I've been playing three years, I think I've developed a lot, but I think I've got a long way to go," Fingleton says. "In another three years, I think about how much better I can be than I am now."

Mike DeCourcy covers college basketball for the Cincinnati Enquirer. E-mail him at decourcy@sportingnews.com.

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