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News
A slice of Bacon: Time for Andre to decide


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Shane Bacon
Arizona Daily Wildcat
By Shane Bacon
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Tuesday, March 23, 2004
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Andre Iguodala might have a million things flying through his head right now, but every one of those thoughts is extremely complicated.

The sophomore from Springfield, Ill., will be laying his head on his pillow from now until the draft deadline deciding if he wants McKale or millions, another year under Lute or Land Rovers.

The facts are simple.

Iggy is projected today by www.nbadraftreport.com as going at No. 14, just outside the lottery, which could end up costing him millions of dollars.

The low ranking, however, is deceiving. Five foreigners, three high schoolers and two college freshmen all take lottery picks from our personal SportsCenter Top 10 favorite.

What those players do not have that Andre possesses is what I like to call McGrady potential.

A well-respected columnist for the Arizona Daily Star compared Iguodala to a 17-year-old kid with a 95 mph fastball, but he is more than that.

Andre is Colt Griffin, a fastballer from a little-known high school in the piney woods of East Texas.

Griffin was a home-run hitting, first-base playing country boy all his life, until head coach Jackie Lloyd started working on his pitching control after Griffin beefed up to 6-foot-4, 210 pounds.

When Griffin started topping 98 on the radar gun, Lloyd decided to try him out in the starting rotation.

$2.4 million dollars later, Griffin was selected by the Royals after he hit 101.9 MPH on the guns versus his arch-rival Lufkin Panthers, beating out another Texas boy, Nolan Ryan, for fastest recorded pitch in Texas high school baseball history.

The Royals didn't care that his control was spotty or that his off-speed pitch didn't have much movement. They wanted his raw ability.

It didn't hurt that he towered over the mound, either, or that he could hit as well as anyone on the team.

Andre has that same kind of ability.

He might be shorter (6-foot-6) and weigh less (207 pounds) than players like Tracy McGrady and LeBron James, but he has the body that NBA coaches want to work with.

They can look past the fact that when he shot anywhere outside of 15 feet this season, it had as good a chance of cashing in as I do with an Olsen twin. A jump shot can be worked out (i.e., Mustafa Shakur's swirling-hurricane shot that head coach Lute Olson said he will rework this off season).

They can look past his questionable shooting and ballhandling because of everything he does possess.

His court vision is as good as ex-Wildcat Luke Walton's, and his athletic ability is second to none in the nation.

His explosiveness towards the hoop and his vertical are so impressive it sometimes looks as though he is being carried through the air when he goes to flush an alley-oop from one of the guards.

All these things are jumbled in the head of a kid who is the same age as me, with the same wants and needs.

What will he be giving up?

He will be cashing in the chance to slap the floor for a chance to slap Spike Lee, and trading a chance to be the star on a campus that loves its basketball players more than keg stands for a world that loves to hate its basketball stars.

Andre can look into the future and see longer 3-pointers, longer seasons and longer TV timeouts without even thinking long-term.

Any kid that has shot with his dad outside on a homemade basketball court has dreamed of making the choice facing the star forward, but it is a little tougher than filling in a Scantron.

Andre can make a decision that will lead to Keystone toasts or a decision that will lead to champagne clinks.

So, what should he do?

Luckily, the decision isn't mine to make.



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