http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/ Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1086473412014&call_pageid= 969907729483&col=970081562040 Jun. 6, 2004. 01:00 AM New Raptor boss remains mystery man Little known about incoming GM Babcock Considered a nice guy who 'knows his basketball' DOUG SMITH SPORTS REPORTER LOS ANGELES—Tiny Augsburg College is hardly a bastion of great college basketball, a little liberal arts school nestled in the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., an NCAA Division III nonentity that is so far off the NBA radar it's ridiculous. Yet every now and then in the late 1990s, an NBA executive would show up at the school's games, sitting in anonymity among the few fans who cared to attend, intently watching one of the players he thought might have some promise. It's virtually impossible to truly measure the skill of a player at a school like Augsburg, where the competition is always suspect and projecting a Division III player onto the best basketball stage in the world is a mug's game. Yet Rob Babcock, then the director of player personnel for the Minnesota Timberwolves, figured the guy he was watching would indeed become a good player and he did. "He was one of the only guys to come over to Augsburg to watch games," Los Angeles Lakers forward Devean George said here yesterday. "He'd give me tips, he'd talk to me, he'd talk to my agent. He's a really good guy." Babcock, one of three brothers involved in running NBA franchises at various levels, will be formally introduced tomorrow as the new Raptor general manager, given the nominal keys to a franchise in a sorry state of disrepair. Babcock inherits a team with only seven players under contract and far over the salary cap already; he's got the No. 8 pick in the coming draft and there is no consensus on who the Raptors should take or if they should consider dealing down in the draft. Babcock still has to hire a coach, figure out who the Raptors will expose in the coming expansion draft and then ferret out free agents to fill the roster and serve as summer league and training camp fodder. It is a large order for someone who's been a vice-president of personnel with the Timberwolves and whose reputation around the league — if you can find a few people who know anything about him — is as someone who aligned himself with Minnesota ownership and did whatever team president Kevin McHale didn't want to do. "He's a great guy, he's hard-working, he knows his basketball," said George. "I don't think anybody would have anything bad to say about him." And that might be because few people know much about him except the fact he's considered a truly nice man. "He's a great guy, like Glen," said one league source, invoking the name of the man Babcock is replacing, Glen Grunwald. But at least the Raptors haven't sent him out into the tough world of NBA trades, signings and talent assessment on his own, which one league official said might have been the reason for the delay in hiring him. Surrounding him with two hall of famers — executive Wayne Embry and former player Alex English — is seen as giving him two sounding boards and the Raptors may have waited to get them before hiring Babcock, a league source said. It's tough, however, to get an exact handle on what Babcock has done in his NBA career since he's never been the man in charge. In his time with the Timberwolves, the team has gone from an expansion team to a perennial playoff squad but how much of that was the doing of McHale and not Babcock is debatable and known only to them. Babcock spent five seasons as the director of scouting for the Denver Nuggets before joining Minnesota. --

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