Lockout Limbo: The Rookie
by Jackie MacMullan and Phil Taylor
Posted: Wed July 14, 1998
| |
As he works out on his own, Mohammed frets
about falling behind.
(Bill Frakes)
|  Nazr Mohammed would have a hard time proving that he is a member
of the Philadelphia 76ers. He has a cap and a few T-shirts and
pairs of shorts bearing the team logo, but there are
12-year-olds in Philly with more Sixers gear than that. The only
thing that really connects Mohammed to his new team is the
workout program that the 76ers' sent him after Mohammed was
traded to Philadelphia by the Utah Jazz, which had selected him
with the last pick of the NBA draft's first round. Shortly after
the draft, Mohammed had visited the Sixers' offices. When he
left, Mohammed was on his own.
Well, maybe he's not completely on his own. The 20-year-old
Mohammed, a 6'10", 240-pound center, is prohibited from having
contact with anyone in the Sixers organization during the
lockout, but he does have the help of the coaching and
weight-training staff at Kentucky, where he was a member of last
season's national champions and where he is doing the bulk of
his summer conditioning work. But the main NBA tutoring Mohammed
gets is in campus pickup games with other former Wildcats stars
such as Kenny Walker.
"It's strange, not being able to work with the coaches,"
Mohammed says. "One of the reasons I was excited about going to
Philadelphia was that [Sixers coach] Larry Brown is supposed to
be a great teacher, and now he can't teach me. Right now I'm in
limbo, but I know if I keep lifting, running, getting some shots
up, I'll be ready when the time comes."
When the time comes, however, rookies such as Mohammed could be
at a major disadvantage. Mohammed is missing the chance to play
under the direction of the Sixers staff in NBA-sanctioned summer
leagues, and if the lockout extends into the fall or beyond, he
may have only a shortened preseason camp to adjust to life in
the NBA and compete for a roster spot.
That is regrettable, because Mohammed has proved that he
develops quickly with the right instruction. When he arrived at
Kentucky as a freshman, he was a pillowy-soft 290 pounds, with
23% body fat. But under the direction of Wildcats coach Rick
Pitino and his staff, Mohammed trimmed down to 240 and 12%, and
turned himself into an NBA prospect.
There are those who say Mohammed, who had another year of
college eligibility, would have been wise to stay at Kentucky
for his senior season. Those whispers will grow louder if he's
still working out on his own when the Wildcats' season begins
this fall. But Mohammed has no regrets. "I knew I was probably
going to be in this position, because everyone knew there was a
good chance of a lockout," he says. "I was hoping for the best
but expecting the worst. It might not look like it right now,
but I made the right decision."
Whenever the Sixers are ready to start teaching, Mohammed will
have to be ready to learn—immediately. Even though he can't
communicate with the team, he gets that message.
Issue date: July 20, 1998
|
