Santangelo’S Draft Mood Not Festive
He could be the difference maker for any of the 5,425 teams bumping and grinding on the streets of Spokane this weekend. He would be their No.1 draft pick, no debate.
Beyond Hoopfest, however, there are 29 teams who apparently are not quite sold.
So Matt Santangelo is “expecting the worst” on Wednesday, when the National Basketball Association holds its annual draft of college seniors, mysterious foreigners and all those kids in a hurry. Santangelo wears cynicism about as comfortably as he wears sandpaper skivvies, especially given his emotional and physical investment in the game. But he also knows dogged realism doesn’t have to mean the death of a dream.
“If it doesn’t happen Wednesday,” said the catalyst of Gonzaga University’s remarkable runs into the last two NCAA Tournaments, “it doesn’t mean I’m not a good basketball player.
“It just means it’s not my time.”
He says it and then swallows hard.
Matt Santangelo has his pride. The most recent coats were applied in head-up battles in college against the likes of Erick Barkley of St. John’s, Mateen Cleaves of Michigan State and Khalid El-Amin of Connecticut. Last summer in the tryouts and practices for the World University Games, there were more tests against Scoonie Penn of Ohio State, A.J. Guyton of Indiana and Ed Cota of North Carolina.
“I compete just as well as they compete,” Santangelo said, “so it’s hard for me to listen to people talk about how good they are and all the glaring weaknesses in my game.”
Santangelo returned to Spokane from his hometown of Portland to take in Hoopfest this weekend. From the TV platform at center court, he watched GU teammate Ryan Floyd and a team of Zag alums bang in the elite division, and saw ex-roommate Vashon Weaver win the slam dunk contest again.
And he tried to ease some of his draft anxiety.
Mock drafts and position rankings are beginning to roll in from all the dot-coms and hoopheads and, sure enough, you have to scroll down a ways before you come across Santangelo’s name.
One expert doesn’t see him being picked at all. Another ranks him the 51st-best player available. Yet another has him as the No. 10 point guard in a nine-point draft.
The memory of him eating up Barkley and St. John’s last March has faded, in the eyes of scouts, in the glare of more recent efforts at the NBA’s Phoenix and Chicago camps.
“Phoenix I did OK,” he said. “But I didn’t play well in Chicago. I just didn’t. I was prepared and worked hard for it and it just wasn’t my week.
“Hindsight is 20-20 and I probably got overexposed. They’ve probably seen me too much.”
Still, like a lot of us, Santangelo finds it hard to comprehend that what’s done in games that count carries less weight than scouting contrivances.
“They question my athleticism,” he said. “There’s a question mark about my ability to defend people and I think that’s legitimate. That’s the weak area of my game. They also question my ability to penetrate, to get into the paint, and I think that’s unfair.
“It’s tough. It’s a weird process. All you ever hear about are the shortcomings in your game. At some point, you look in the mirror and say, `Can I even play this game?’ What’s the point? I should put a resume together and start looking into a real-world job.”
Well, it has hardly come to that.
Even before he started being poked and prodded in the NBA meat market, Santangelo jetted off to Italy - just a week after the Zags fell to Purdue in the Sweet 16 - and auditioned for Kinder Bologna, one of the country’s top pro clubs. Injuries had prompted Kinder to look into the possibility of signing a guard for the remainder of the season; Santangelo wasn’t much interested in that, but he saw no reason not to develop a relationship that could pay off in the future. If he could ever corral an Italian visa to go with that Italian surname, that relationship might truly solidify.
“It was like a recruiting trip,” he said.
Since then, there has been more interest - from Milan’s Stefanel club and Olympiakos in Greece. They’re options, and good ones - but about 30 spots down on his list.
Santangelo can fathom the financial aspects of his fall off the board as well as anyone, but that’s hardly the source of his anxiety.
He has a big family. He has many friends. He has a legion of fans here in Spokane who remember him as GU’s version of a lottery pick. After all, the Zags only won 93 games with him in the lineup.
“It weighs on you because of how many times you have to tell the story,” he said. “I have a tremendous support system - a lot of intimate relationships with people who really care about me, and want to know what’s going on in my life. So I have to relive it constantly.”
On Wednesday, he’ll do it again. He and his family will host a draft-day party at his old grade school, Holy Redeemer, in Portland. It was one of those functions scheduled when it looked as if Santangelo might go in the first round; after Chicago, he admitted wanting to “ix-nay that whole deal.
“But we decided to turn it into more of a thank-you party,” he said. “I’ve had a tremendous amount of people support me, and this will be a chance to say thanks and celebrate the day.
“Because even to be in this situation - to have a chance to be picked - is a blessing.”