<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>I guess it takes a coach's son to appreciate a coach's son.J.B. Bickerstaff -- Charlotte Bobcats assistant and, yes, the head coach's son -- was clueing me in to what makes Adam Morrison special, and this might be the first time that soft-as-an-angel's-kiss shooting touch was dismissed."People think he made Gonzaga great by putting the ball in the basket," Bickerstaff said and, hey, 28 points is hard to ignore, J.B. But I tend to interrupt, so let Bickerstaff finish his point ..."It's not just that -- it's getting the ball to his teammates. On nights when he's not making shots, he can still impact a basketball game. One-dimensional guys can be stopped. He's not one-dimensional."Bickerstaff said these are subtitles best recognized by coach's kids. My dad spent most of his career waiting for West Coast baseball scores on a dinky newspaper's copy desk, but even I could see what J.B. meant in Morrison's first practice Monday night.The guy sees things. He made a pass on the break that would have disappeared a split-second after he threw it. The recipient, a rookie, bobbled the resulting layup, but that wasn't the point. The kid understands this game at a level of sophistication his teammates already appreciate."It's a different kind of skill -- old-school," is how forward-center Sean May described Morrison's game. "Nowadays, in college ball, they're all tall athletes who can run and jump. He understands what to do -- how to come off screens, how to space the court."It's true that Morrison's dad was a junior-college coach, and that it changed his vision of the game. Bickerstaff learned in the pre-draft vetting process that Morrison isn't just a worker, he's a video hound.The way J.B. described it, a lot of guys will work all day in the gym, perfecting a shot or smoothing out his ball-handling. Morrison breaks down miles of videotape, and it's not to admire his greatest hits."He doesn't just watch himself, he watches the total game," Bickerstaff explained when asked about that pass Morrison made."His dad's a basketball coach, and when guys don't make those plays, it makes coaches crazy."Of course, it wouldn't matter if Morrison was the love child of John Wooden and Pat Summitt, if he was 5-foot-2 barrel of goo with 20-200 vision. Instead, he's a 6-foot-8 forward who shot 50 percent during three seasons at Gonzaga.You wouldn't know he was a 50-percent shooter, watching Monday's scrimmage. The ball wobbled off the rim often, probably the natural outgrowth of rookie jitters."It was very different going up and down" the court at this level, Morrison said. "The speed ... the size... ."Notice he said nothing about the brains. It's obvious why. The guy already knows the game. More importantly, his veteran teammates know he knows this game.That patch of ground is where most rookies never step.</div>Apparently, he is a good passer with good court vision as well. We'll see how he does in his rookie year. He's definately a ROY candidate with his ready-for-the-NBA game.
Yeah, he looked like a street person who found a nice suit hanging by his box on draft day...tisk...tisk...
I used to work with a lady that looked just like him, haha. She had a thicker stache though, ehhh. Luckily for the Bobcats I am sure they can come up with some sort of promotion or marketing thing much like the Red Sox and Johnny Damon's beard.
