| Faces From Afar: Slovene Center is Feeling Like a Rookie Again |
By LIZ ROBBINS
Primoz Brezec played all of 72 minutes for the Indiana Pacers last season, and the day after they lost in the Eastern Conference finals, he was in the gym, practicing.
He practiced for a week straight in Indiana, then flew home to Slovenia. The next day, he practiced with his national team.
In July, he returned to the United States, but this time to Charlotte. The Bobcats had plucked the 7-foot-1 Brezec from the expansion draft - and from obscurity - and made him their starting center.
"I never stopped working out because I didn't play for a year," Brezec said after an intense two-hour practice. "Hard work's got to pay off."
So it was understandable that Brezec, whose fourth season in the N.B.A. feels like his first, woke up suddenly last week with a strained muscle in his rib cage. And that he told no one that he could barely lift his right arm.
"I'm not going to cry for everything," he said. "I want to play all the games this year."
Bernie Bickerstaff, the Bobcats' coach and general manager, reminded Brezec to be smart, but he had to smile.
"I'd rather have someone like that," Bickerstaff said. "The guy is just amazing. We try to hold him out and he wants to keep playing."
Brezec had enough of the alternative in Indiana. The Pacers chose him with the 27th pick in the 2000 draft, but for three seasons, he was either injured or developing on the injury list. When Larry Bird took over as Pacers president in 2003, he flew to Sweden to watch Brezec play in the Euroleague championships.
"He told me: 'Primoz, you're going to get a chance. We like you. We know what you can do,' " Brezec recalled.
Brezec said Bird and the Pacers' chief executive, Donnie Walsh, had intended to protect him in the expansion draft, but kept Reggie Miller instead. "At the last minute, Larry told me and even Donnie told me, 'Primoz, it came down to you and Reggie,' '' he said. "But you know what, they made me a favor."
Brezec is among the Bobcats' leading scorers, averaging 13.3 points and 7.0 rebounds a game entering Saturday's game at Cleveland. That Charlotte started the season 1-6 is inconsequential to him.
"I can't explain how happy I am," Brezec said. "I was stuck on the bench for the last three years in Indiana. There was like no light for me there."
Brezec, 25, inherited his size and skills from his father, Hilarlj, who is 6-8 and played for the Slovene national team. Hilarlj is a small-business owner in Slovenia, and his mother, Irena, is a judge.
Brezec's parents were in Charlotte this past week for a visit and to watch their son play. Brezec and his wife, Nada, are expecting their first child, a girl, next month.
During the three years Brezec and his wife were in Indianapolis, she earned a degree in criminal justice and psychology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Between classes, she cooked three meals a day for him.
The work ethic runs in the family.
Used courtesy of: The New York Times |
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