Twelve years ago, Rumeal Robinson was the best high school player in the state of Massachusetts. Now he's trying to find room in a star-glutted NBA.

Part 3

by Tom Scocca

Certainly, Rumeal Robinson has shown enough basketball talent in his life to qualify him for an NBA job. His career shooting percentage from the floor is .432, which beats some of the league's most famous young point guards -- Jason Kidd, Nick Van Exel, and last year's dueling rookies, Marbury and the Philadelphia 76ers' Allen Iverson. Per minute, he has passed out more assists than Iverson or All-Star Terrell Brandon. But Iverson hoisted almost 20 shots a game last season, scored 40 or more points in five straight games, and won Rookie of the Year.

Not that Robinson can't post flashy numbers himself, on occasion. When the Nets' starting point guard got injured in 1993, Robinson stepped in and led the team on an 8-1 tear, averaging 16 points and 8.3 assists per game, and winning the Player of the Week award in the second week of March --  a period he recalls as the best time in his pro career ("When the opportunity came for me to perform on the floor, I didn't really miss a step," he says). In 1996, he debuted for Portland with 18 points and 13 assists. And his physical presence has always impressed his coaches, from the Nets' Chuck Daly, who dubbed him a "power point guard," to the staff in Detroit. "He's very athletic," Pistons assistant coach Alvin Gentry says. "He's an exceptionally strong player."

What he's not is an Allen Iverson, superhumanly quick and agile enough to play the sort of improvisational, showy ball that goes with press notices and big shoe contracts. He pales next to the glamour kids, a point that Kobe Bryant, his Lakers teammate last year, once flung in his face with a New York Times Magazine reporter looking on. "I be 18, [expletive]," the magazine reported Bryant saying after Robinson tried to give him advice, "but I got a game."

It's a rude way for a kid without a résumé to talk to a champion. But Robinson speaks highly of the teenager and his chance to succeed among the grownups. "Kobe Bryant was groomed to be a basketball player," he says. "He's very mature."

There's no sense in his trying to compete with the likes of Bryant and Iverson, anyway. Robinson's career prospects are as a traditional point guard; his job is to help his teammates find a way to score. As such, he still needs to prove he can meet the essential challenge of the everyday NBA player: he needs to figure out how not to be a star. "He's more of a scorer than he is a setup guy," Gentry says. "He's a guy who can create his own shot." When it comes to creating shots for others, Gentry adds, "he has not quite run a team like we would like him to run the team."

For somebody whose potential has been measured, who has been evaluated as less than star material, the goal is to be a talented, inspirational cog. "The thing you don't want to do is hurt the team," Robinson says. "You have to learn to pass the ball and get guys their shot." Your own shooting, he adds, you can practice by yourself.

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Tom Scocca can be reached at tscocca[a]phx.com.