Le Basketbawl

There are many players who leave college and enter the NBA too early; Indiana Pacers center Roy Hibbert may have stayed in a year too long.  It’s not that Hibbert was injured his last year at Georgetown University or that his game regressed. However his draft status may have fallen by coming out after the 2008 NCAA season instead of in 2007. Hibbert and his school both had great NCAA Tournaments in 2007; but the same thing did not happen the following year. Perhaps Hibbert would have been drafted higher had he come out a year earlier; but one can only look forward.

So far things have been going quite well for the center now in his second season in the NBA. The “Indianapolis Star” reported Friday that even though we are barely into the new season Hibbert so far has shown quite an improvement in his low post game. Through four games the big man is averaging 10.8 points and he is leading the club with 10.3 rebounds per game.

Pacers veteran center Jeff Foster who has played against some pretry Frickin good centers in his career. Foster is now in season number 11 and that time period accounts for a lot of quality big men. Foster is full of praise for his teammate. The veteran told reporters “In the very near future, if not right now, he’s going to be a dominant low-post scorer, a guy you can count on throwing the ball to and getting you points.”

The Pacers tried for years to build a team around their former big man Jermaine O’Neal but he was never quite the same player after Isiah Thomas was fired. There has been talk over the years that O’Neal had held a grudge against Indiana because they did not fire Zeke until after the team had signed the big man to a long term deal.

Before that you have to go back to Rik Smits the “The Flying Dutchman” but he was not a real low post presence in the pivot. In a time where there are not a whole lot of truly quality centers in the NBA; if the Pacers can develop Hibbert they will have themselves a very valuable weapon. So far this season he looks like he is at least on the right track.