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A kookabura? Australian Gaze being compared to Bird
Posted: Tuesday July 21, 1998 07:29 PM
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Lithuanian assistant coach Donn Nelson, a veteran of American basketball, paid Australian shooting guard Andrew Gaze a very great compliment Tuesday. He compared him to Larry Bird. "He's got the full international package," Nelson said of Gaze. "He's in my opinion the Larry Bird of international 2-guards [shooting guards]. He can shoot it. He's got a tremendous mind for the game." Nelson is the son of ex-NBA player, coach and executive Don Nelson, who coached the U.S. world champion team in 1994 and now runs the Dallas Mavericks. Donn Nelson -- a former NBA scout and assistant coach with and without his father -- was speaking after Gaze scored a game-high 26 points in an 82-64 win over Lithuania that clinched a spot for Australia in the semifinals of the Goodwill Games basketball tournament. "We even saw him play point guard out there," said Nelson. "He'll do anything his team needs. He'll come up with the big rebound. He's constantly getting the opposition in foul trouble because he is so smart and flops and draws fouls. He's a really hard guy to guard. "He was our number one priority going in and what did he come up with? Twenty-six. And we've got some pretty good, young, defensive, long-armed guards," said Nelson. "I would agree with him," said Australian coach Barry Barnes when told of the comparison to Bird. "It's a huge compliment and a huge statement. This man leads Australian basketball and is very widely respected." "It's very nice," said Gaze, three days shy of his 33rd birthday. "When I was growing up I loved to watch Larry Bird. He was about my favorite player." Bird is bigger than Gaze, who is listed at 6-foot-7 but is probably an inch or two shorter and so is a natural for the guard position. "We didn't play the same position but I really tried to imitate his demeanor," said Gaze, "the way you try to make the most out of whatever abilities you have." Like 'Larry Legend,' Gaze is not the best jumper or the quickest on the court. "I'm fully aware of my limitations physically," said Gaze. "But I think he's much much more athletic than a lot of people think and I think I'm a little bit more athletic than people think," Gaze said with a smile. "You exaggerate," said teammate and fellow sharpshooter Shane Heal. "You've got no athletic ability, mate." Gaze, whose father Lindsay was a national team player and coach for Australia and still coaches in the country for the Melbourne Tigers, reached the NCAA championship game with Seton Hall in 1989. "I see that whole experience as one of the highlights of my life," he said, but admitted he had never watched a replay of the game because he had not played particularly well. In that game, Gaze, one of the world's greatest exemplars of good sportsmanship, admitted to considering trash-talking Michigan's Rumeal Robinson in an attempt to rattle him as he approached the foul line for what turned out to be the tying and winning free throws. But when Gaze saw all the cameras pointed at his opponent he felt sorry for him. For a moment, Gaze even found himself silently rooting for Robinson to make one shot and miss the other, thus sending the game into overtime and giving Seton Hall a chance without totally letting Michigan down. "If he misses two shots the kid's going to be hurting," Gaze remembers thinking even as that championship was about to be snatched away from him. The championship he is seeking now is the world championship in Greece, starting next week. In his long career with the Australian national team -- four Olympics and four world championship tournaments -- he has never taken a medal, finishing fourth at the Olympics in 1988 and 1996. "Our time is due. I'm certainly running out of opportunities to be a part of it," said Gaze, who has played professionally with the NBA's Washington Bullets, AC Apolon (Greece) and Udine (Italy) in addition to the Melbourne Tigers. "I think Andrew's been a great example not only for basketball people but for all sports people in Australia," said Heal. "I grew up idolizing Andrew Gaze."
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