Ike Goes On Tour For Nba WSU Standout Enjoys Pre-Draft Camp Routine

There were NBA general managers, coaches and scouts watching his every move, but Isaac Fontaine hadn’t gone all the way to sunny Arizona with the intention of freezing up.

So after spending last week in Phoenix for the first of two major NBA pre-draft camps, the Washington State senior assured reporters there really wasn’t much to be nervous about.

“For me, I like playing basketball and I like playing against good competition, so I was enjoying myself down there,” Fontaine, a 6-foot-4, 210-pound shooting guard, said Tuesday. “I was playing down there and they were paying my room for me and I was getting money for food and everything was going fine for me, so I enjoyed it a lot.”

It could become a familiar arrangement. Projected by scouts as an early second-round selection in the June draft, Fontaine could strengthen his position with strong showings in Phoenix and at the other major pre-draft camp, June 3-6 in Chicago.

Critics have questioned his defense, an issue Fontaine seems determined to address.

“The feedback from the coaches was I was helping myself out there,” Fontaine said. “A lot of times coaches have been skeptical about my defense, and they say I was playing good defense.”

Fontaine said he expects to hold individual workouts with at least four NBA teams in the upcoming weeks.

The Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, Houston Rockets and Sacramento Kings are expected to set up workouts through Fontaine’s agent, Kyle Rote Jr. of Athletic Resource Management.

In Phoenix, Fontaine averaged about 10 points in three games during the five-day camp. He roomed with UCLA star Charles O’Bannon and played on a team that included Tulsa’s Shay Seals, Providence’s Austin Croshere and Kiwane Garris of Illinois.

Fontaine’s team had a 1-2 record, losing its final two games after Croshere, a forward and probable first-round pick, was sidelined by illness.

Statistics were not made available, but Fontaine said he made 8 of 18 field goals overall, with his best shooting coming from beyond the NBA’s more-distant 3-point line. Most of his individual matchups were against Maryland’s Keith Booth, Florida State’s James Collins, Iowa State’s Dedric Willoughby, Arizona State’s Quincy Brewer and Minnesota’s Bobby Jackson.

“It wasn’t like playing on your college team where I was depended on to score or anything like that,” said Fontaine, the only Division I guard last season to shoot better than 49 percent and still average at least 21.9 points per game.

In addition to the games and specialized drills, the camp allowed NBA teams to run prospects through a series of personality tests. Fontaine found many of the questions amusing.

“Dumb stuff,” he said. “It was like a 190-question test. Some of them would be like, would you rather be a counselor or an architect?

“And some were those SAT questions like, shovel is to dig as knife is to cut, junk like that. They had that part and then the coaches and GMs asking you family-background questions, trying to see if you had a stable background.”

, DataTimes