http://www.nba.com/bobcats/feature_050623.html BOBCATS WORKOUTS CHALLENGE THE DRAFT'S BEST Gerald Green had his hands on his knees, tugging at the bottom of his shorts while sweat dripped from his forehead onto the court last week at the Bobcats Basketball Center. Then he took the ball, bounced it a few times while catching his breath, then slowly released and connected from the free throw line. That was it for Green’s first NBA workout. But it wasn’t the first time the Bobcats coaching staff had seen a drained top prospect hit his final shots with relief. “That’s the way we play,” Bobcats General Manager and Head Coach Bernie Bickerstaff said. “We want to see if we can break them.” That’s done by a regimen of conditioning tests followed by skill drills. This sequence tests how a player performs under the stress of 48 minutes of NBA basketball. “Some teams may do more skill-oriented things, but I think we have a nice combination of skill-oriented things with conditioning,” Assistant Coach John-Blair Bickerstaff said. “Basketball is not a stationary game. You have to show your skill level while moving with the speed of the game.” The tests are done at a fast pace to resemble game speed. They consume the first part of the 45-minute sessions to measure athleticism, strength and stamina. There’s a lot of jumping – vertical and horizontal – and foot-testing running – sprints, laterals and back pedaling. The ball is also tossed into the mix for court-length drives and a dunk-and-run drill. Success is about more than just getting it done quickly. The instructions for these drills have to be followed closely, giving a measure of a player’s retention abilities. The best advice a player can get is to fight through and show that he doesn’t fold under stress. “We just tell them no matter what, do your best,” Assistant Athletic Trainer Mark Coffelt said. “There are a lot of eyes out there watching what you do. If you’re not fit, it will be exposed eventually.” But those tips can only go so far. Some, like Charlie Villanueva, have done NBA workouts in previous years while others got their experience from this year’s workout circuit. But nobody has said it was easy. Almost without exception, players coming through the Bobcats’ routine have said it’s the most grueling they’ve ever been through. Although Bickerstaff said every team takes a look at fitness, national champion Sean May said the Bobcats are uniquely demanding. “A lot of teams do a lot of spot shooting,” the former North Carolina star said. “(Here) you’re rarely standing still. They integrate conditioning into their drills to see if when you get tired you can still shoot the basketball. I think they do a great job of that.” Duke’s Shavlik Randolph compared his workout to a job interview, which isn’t far from the truth. The workouts test how a player would fit in physically with the team’s philosophy. “If you watched us throughout this season, our reputation around the league was that we work hard every night,” the younger Bickerstaff said. “If you have a reputation that that’s the team you’re going to be, you’ve got to have players who are capable of doing that. The only way to do that is to test them, challenge them, see what their effort is.” Most prospects would agree that they are challenged, but the elder Bickerstaff said he has yet to “break” anyone. But with the exception of Bulls draft pick Ben Gordon last year, they’ve all left the floor a lot more worn than they were when it started, he said. The Bobcats’ boss has looked at lots of prospects in his rigorous workout in his decades of NBA coaching. Bickerstaff, who has drafted talent from Shawn Kemp to Emeka Okafor, has kept his notes throughout it all. “We’ve been doing it for years, ever since we were in Denver and Seattle,” he said. “We’ve got a book on every player that we’ve worked out so we can do a comparison on all things that we do. We just keep it over the years to see what’s happening.” The workouts are more than just a boot camp. After all, the Bobcats staff is familiar with most prospects just from watching the college season, so this is a chance to go in-depth. Besides the physical tests, there are interviews and dinners. As the younger Bickerstaff said, a good player also has to be a good person. “You’ve got to have talent, you’ve got to have skill, but what kind of person you are says a lot about what you can bring to this team,” he said. “One great player can’t do it by himself. Every great player, (every) player that’s won a championship, has had great teammates.” The whole package of evaluating everything from personality to post-ups to push-ups makes the Bobcats run one of the toughest shows in the league – even for the best prospects in the land. “It was tough. I’m not going to lie,” Wake Forest’s Chris Paul said. “If you haven’t worked out for the Bobcats yet, be ready for it.” By Kevin Hilgers, BobcatsBasketball.com --

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