| Early Signs Brezec was Worth the Gamble |
Primoz Brezec, who is all-too familiar with the view from an NBA bench, has cemented his spot in the Charlotte Bobcats playing rotation. So he won't let something as minor as a scratched nose take him out of the game.
Brezec, a 7-foot-1 center who is the Bobcats' leading scorer and one of the NBA's early-season revelations, took an Orlando player's fingernail to the nose in Charlotte's victory Saturday.
The blood flowed, but he quickly stanched it.
Had a referee seen it, Brezec would have been ordered off the floor to have the cut ministered to.
"I was so scared, I didn't want to come out of the game," Brezec said after practice Monday at the team's training center. "I was glad I had the wrist band."
As a substitute buried on the Indiana Pacers bench last season, Brezec got 72 minutes in the 18 games he played. Barring something unforeseen, he will surpass that total -- he's played 61 minutes in the Bobcats' two games -- Wednesday against the Milwaukee Bucks in Charlotte's third game.
Brezec was acquired via last summer's expansion draft. His increased minutes are a testament not only to his perseverance through three seasons of sitting in Indiana, but also to the Bobcats' meticulous scouting system.
Charlotte's coaching and scouting staff spent much of last season scouring the league for expansion-draft possibilities. But it's tough to rate a player who only plays once every three or four games, and then only in mop-up time. So they placed a high premium on exhibitions, when players like Brezec received more minutes.
Brezec was well down the Pacers' frontcourt pecking order below players like Al Harrington, Jermaine O'Neal, Scot Pollard and Jeff Foster, on a team that would finish with the NBA's best regular-season record. But he played well enough in the 2003-04 preseason to pique the Bobcats' interest.
"We were fortunate to have a year to go out and look," said coach-general manager Bernie Bickerstaff. "But if you didn't also catch some of these players early in exhibitions, you didn't get a chance to see them play."
As former director of player personnel for the Orlando Magic, Bobcats assistant coach Gary Brokaw also scouted him in Brezec's native Slovenia before the 2001 NBA draft.
"If you look across the board, we had to take guys who hadn't had a chance," Brokaw said. "That's the nature of expansion. They haven't had the opportunity, but with the opportunity they'll shine."
That's what has happened to Brezec. He is averaging 17.5 points and 9.5 rebounds in 30.5 minutes per game. There's reason for fans to think he's the real thing: The Charlotte Hornets took Dell Curry and Muggsy Bogues in the 1988 expansion draft and they had long, productive careers with the team.
"The impressive thing about Primoz is we knew he could shoot and pass -- and he's 7 feet," Bickerstaff said. "So you go for it. But to sit here and say we knew the answer, we didn't.
"But if you're going to go wrong, go wrong with a 7-footer."
Used courtesy of: Charlotte Observer |
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