The Future of Hasheem Thabeet

As a PC student, I don’t like UConn too much. I’m just not a big fan of them and their pretentious coach. What I’m really not a fan of is all the publicity star center Hasheem Thabeet is getting right now as a potential NBA prospect. Granted, on the college level, the kid is an impact player, pulling down rebounds and blocking shots like few others have in recent memory. His field goal percentage ranks among the top percentages in the country (although it’s still not higher than Randall Hanke’s). This comes largely from the fact that he essentially sits in the low post and uses his tremendous height to just dump it in the basket over the defenders. People seem to overlook the fact that he has ZERO ball handling skills and couldn’t hit the ocean from a rowboat from 5+ feet out. What, then, is his NBA future looking like? Well, I’ve made the following comparison before on this blog and probably on 1000 other occasions. Most of the time no one had any idea what I was talking about, so I’m going to do a little explanation this time to clear things up. I’m also using this opportunity to get this down in writing so that when Thabeet crashes and burns at the next level I’ll be able to say I told you so (on the very unlikely chance that I’m wrong, there conveniently happens to be a delete button).

Once upon a time (1992) at George Washington University, an extremely tall (7’1″) young man was brought in from Nigeria to see what he could do for the team (Thabeet is 7’3″ and from Tanzania, but the parallel pretty much holds there). The kid was an instant impact player, leading GW to the Sweet 16 in his first year and to the second round of the NCAAs the next. In his two years, he became GW’s career leader in blocked shots, averaging over 2 per game (Thabeet averages 4+, so he is a bit better on the defensive end, but to be honest, defense is not the primary focus of this comparison). On the offensive end, he scored with alarming frequency down low, and wreaked havoc on the boards using his size advantage to put up career averages of 13.8 ppg and 10.7 rpg (Thabeet is averaging 12.9/10.1 this year and 9.5/7.9 for his career). This young man, however, was not known for his ball handling skills and rarely scored outside of the paint (sound like anyone we know? Thabeet has a 0.2 career A:TO). This was not seen to be a problem however, because scoring and rebounding numbers like that are tough to pass up. He came out of college after his sophomore year at GW and was drafted at #14 by the New Jersey Nets (I will now light myself on fire). By now, if you were a college basketball fan in the early 90s or a Nets fan (like myself), you know exactly who I’m talking about. The player in question is none other than the immortal (Nets fans might want to look away) YINKA DARE.

Stinka.

Let’s take a look at how Yinka’s NBA career went, shall we? In his rookie season with New Jersey, Dare played 3 minutes in his first game. Then he tore his ACL. Shit. Done for the year. He came back the following season with even bigger expectations. He played in 58 games for the Nets that year. His assist-to-turnover ratio for that season? ZERO. On the year, he posted 72 turnovers and ZERO assists. To this day he holds the NBA record for most consecutive minutes played without an assist. He put up career totals of 4 assists and 96 turnovers and averaged 2.1 ppg and 2.6 rebounds. 2.6 boards is a tough number to put up when you’re 7’1″. He was out of the league entirely by 2000, playing for 4 seasons, never playing more than 58 games in a year. He died in 2004 of a heart attack caused by a heart condition he had lived with for years. Now I’m not saying Hasheem Thabeet is going to die at the age of 32, but considering how similar these two were in their college numbers, it’s not a total reach to predict Thabeet will not be the NBA player everyone seems to think he will. Well, at least if he fails, Thabeet can fall back on his good looks to land him a modeling job somewhere. Oh wait, shit.

YIKES.

UConn sucks, let’s go Friars.

-SM