UCLA’s Tyler Honeycutt was the prime national talent on display for the Nets on Thursday, but also among the auditioning NBA Draft hopefuls were a healthy crop of local products.
There was shooting guard Jeremy Hazell of Harlem and Seton Hall; Paterson-born forward Rashad Bishop of Cincinnati; and Mount Vernon’s Jonathan Mitchell, a former New York Mr. Basketball who finished up at Rutgers after two seasons at Florida.
“I don’t know if any of them are NBA ready. The one thing I think is they all have a chance maybe to make an NBA roster,” said Nets GM Billy King, who also watched power forwards Carleton Scott of Notre Dame and Chris Wright of Dayton. “We want to see them because we saw them in college. And it gives them an opportunity to work out with other teams but also now, adding a D-League team to our fold, we’re looking at it in a two-fold situation.”
The D-League draft goes off in the fall and the Nets are running the Springfield Armor so they’ll stockpile that roster, too.
But Thursday, all thoughts were on the NBA – “I don’t think they come in thinking D-League,” King admitted.
Hazell, who had projected to be a Big East stud going into his senior year, had a season to forget. He broke his wrist in November and then was the victim of a shooting incident at his Harlem home on Christmas night.
“For me, I’m under the radar, so there’s no pressure. I could just come out here and just jack up shots and just play. People who got projected in the first round, they got to come out here and show what they can do because they supposed to be the big-time players. So me, there’s no pressure for me. I’ll just come out here and I just got to perform,” Hazell said.
Bishop said he’s carrying the banner for all kids from the New Jersey inner cities in his NBA quest.
“It feels good to be back right there in your hometown, home state, working out for a team,” Bishop said. “It’s big. It just shows kids coming up behind me that you can do a lot of things from where we come from as long as you work hard.”
Mitchell seemed to be the most genuinely excited at just having the audition.
“I’m just honored to have a workout with the New Jersey Nets. It was a pleasure to be here,” the 6-7 forward said. “I think I definitely held my own, but I’ve got to get in better shape and keep working every day.”
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Honeycutt was said to be the class of the workout. The skinny, 6-8 sophomore forward who in some mock drafts is projected to be gone before the Nets pick at 27, averaged 12.8 points and also averaged over two blocks a game – he got that, he said, from being a star volleyball player in high school.
“ My nickname was ‘Automatic point.’ Anytime we needed one, we just set it out to me,” Honeycutt said.
King was describing Honeycutt – he noted that he had an off shooting day which the player readily admitted – and noted that another skinny shooter out of UCLA, Reggie Miller, had a pretty fair career.
“Very athletic. He had some very good games in college. He didn’t shoot the ball well here today, but he’s athletic. Body’s a little frail, but there was another guy from UCLA, back in ‘87, had a frail body that lasted 18 years – Reggie Miller,” King said. “You’ve got to take all that in consideration, try to figure out where he might fit. Because he is young. Does his body get bigger? It may not. But he didn’t shoot it that well today.”
Still. King acknowledged when the Nets’ time comes, “He may not be there. And he may be there. So that’s where I think his range could be.”
Honeycutt said he has heard his draft range going anywhere from 12 to 30. And both Honeycutt and King stressed that fatigue becomes a factor as the end of the workout schedule. The Nets represented the third team in three days for Honeycutt, who said he went through all workouts just trying to show his entire package.
“Just play to your strengths – whether it’s trying to get to the rack or just showing them that you’re competing. They can tell. They’ve seen enough games to know if you can shoot, or they know how good you are. It’s just a matter of you competing and doing what you do best,” Honeycutt said.
