Kidd Likes Ike For Draft Phoenix Point Guard Among Those Impressed With Fontaine’s Play
Isaac Fontaine was feeling ill Monday night, and so the team dressed in black and gold was forced to go with Jason Kidd for the entire second half.
Not a bad option, just as the Sacramento Professional Basketball League has been a fruitful decision for Fontaine. With next Wednesday’s NBA draft approaching, the former Washington State University star is home for the summer, using his native city’s annual pro-am to stay in shape.
Monday night’s abbreviated outing was unproductive for Fontaine, who has averaged nearly 20 points in recent games at the Salvation Army’s Ray Robinson Oak Park Community Center.
“I scored 20-something the other night and I’ve been doing all right,” Fontaine said. “I just had no energy tonight.”
After spending much of the day serving as a counselor at Sacramento Kings star Mitch Richmond’s camp for kids, a fatigued Fontaine took just one shot, scored no points and was mostly a witness on defense.
He figures to fare better at next week’s draft, as Kidd points out.
“It’s not like a couple years ago, when a team drafted the best player available,” said Kidd, the Phoenix Suns point guard and a former All-Star. “Now teams are looking for pieces to the puzzle.
“Ike can definitely fit into one of the teams. He understands the game, can score and play defense.”
Even with Kidd’s 22 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, Fontaine’s team lost, 102-89.
The winning team included former University of Washington center Rich Manning (15 points, nine rebounds), now with the Los Angeles Clippers, and retired NBA point guard Jim Les.
Les managed to survive in a league in which he was undersized and only marginally skilled, qualifying him to offer Fontaine a few words of advice: “I told him last week to stay in shape and to bust his tail no matter where he’s playing, whether it be in summer leagues or wherever.”
Fontaine felt he performed ably at last month’s NBA pre-draft camp in Phoenix and said he received positive feedback from several teams. Even so, he was not invited to this month’s more prestigious camp in Chicago.
Why the All-Pac-10 player wasn’t invited remains unknown.
At 6-foot-4 and 210 pounds, some feel WSU’s all-time leading scorer is too small to be an NBA shooting guard and too slow to play the point.
“He’s a strong kid,” Les said. “The key for him is whether he’s big enough to play the two or fast enough to play the one.”
Fontaine seems unruffled.
“You can only worry about the things you can control,” he said.
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