NBA
Rider’s Thompson fills a need for Kings
MAAC’s top player was surprise pick
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Kings’ draft night began Thursday with the hopes that their major problems would be solved for them, specifically the hope that a top-tier point guard would fall their way. There is, after all, no incumbent to run the team.
Then Texas point man D. J. Augustin was surprisingly nabbed ninth by Charlotte, followed by the extra heartache of seeing Indiana take Arizona’s Jerryd Bayless at No. 11. But when their focus turned to adding to the frontcourt that was among the NBA’s worst in rebounding and had a glaring lack of low-post presence, there were no regrets about this new direction.
The Kings selected Rider power forward Jason Thompson with the No. 12 pick, a move that was dubbed the surprise of the lottery picks but no surprise to those within the Kings’ draft room.
In going with the 6-foot-11, 250- pound Thompson, there was little hesitation to go against the mock draft grain and bring another smallschool product to Sacramento as part of the ongoing rebuilding project. Kings basketball President Geoff Petrie said Thompson wouldn’t have stayed available much longer, expecting Golden State to take him at No. 14. He was, Petrie said, a unanimous pick of the available players among the team’s scouting staff.
While passing up the likes of LSU’s Anthony Randolph, whose featherweight 197-pound frame wasn’t seen as a boon in the battle on the boards, Petrie followed a script he had followed before. Most recently, his selection of shooting guard Kevin Martin out of little-known Western Carolina in 2004 showed a willingness to mine the smaller schools for prospects. Then and now, Petrie said he’s confident this pick will eventually quiet the critics.
“There have been a lot of terrific players who have come into the NBA from small schools [like] Dennis Rodman [Southeastern Oklahoma State],” Petrie said.
Thompson is no Rodman, but his 12.1 rebounds per game as a senior ranked him second nationally and could help the Kings who ranked 29th in the league on the glass (40.1 rebounds per game).
He averaged 20.4 points and 2.7 blocks, earning honors as the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference’s Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year. But he is certainly a smallschool product, having traveled just 31 miles from his high school in Mount Laurel, N. J., to attend Rider in Lawrenceville, N. J.
Having grown from a 5-11 guard to a 6-6 center in his first three high school seasons, he verbally committed to Rider before he was a senior. After winning a Group IV state championship with Lenape High as a 6-8 senior, he rebuffed overtures from Villanova and UCLA to stay close to home.
“Rider is, like, a half-hour away from my home, so my family could come to the games,” Thompson said in a conference call. “I got a lot of support out here. It was more being a big fish in a small pond.”
Yet so off-the-radar was Thompson that he wasn’t invited to the green room in draft central at Madison Square Garden in New York. Instead, the 21-year-old sat with friends and family at his home in Mount Laurel. Thompson was far from surprised that he hadn’t been invited. He had taken on the underdog role early, participating in “16 or 17” workouts, far more than most prospects to prove himself to the NBA types.
“I just tried to show everyone that I could play through adversity, traveling so much compared to everybody and would do whatever it takes,” he said. “I think that gave me a lot of motivation. I had to keep proving myself each workout. That gave me motivation on what I had to do, how hard I had to go at each mission.”
The Kings worked Thompson out twice, and also saw him at a group team session in Oakland.
“He did a great job in the workouts,” Kings coach Reggie Theus said. “From a skill level, he does a lot of the things that we need.”
While the big body and low-post abilities are in line with Theus’ most ardent wishes for the Kings’ roster, Thompson’s versatility qualifies him as a Petrie pick.
