Workout Notebook: Bring on the 'Bigs'

By Peter F. Stringer
Celtics.com
June 2, 2006

After four days of working out point guard prospects, the Celtics shifted gears Friday morning, as NC State's Cedric Simmons headlined the four 'bigs' (power forward and center prospects) who worked out for the team at The Sports Authority Training Center at HealthPoint in Waltham.

Clemson's Akin Akingbala, Notre Dame's Torin Francis and Boston University's Kevin Gardner rounded out the foursome. Gardner was a replacement for Wake Forest's Eric Williams, who was scheduled to be on hand today for the Celtics, but reportedly injured himself at another workout and cancelled his appearance.

The workouts on Friday emphasized post-up skills and rebounding, and concluded as always with the notorious three-minute run.

While point guard workouts are somewhat restrictive in the sense that you don't get to see players in many game like scenarios, big man drills lend themselves more to the four-man, two-on-two workout format. NBA regulations stipulate that teams can only have four players on the court at the same time.

"The workouts lend themselves to big guys a little bit better. You can create more realistic game circumstances," Ainge said. "For point guards, it's all about reading, decision-making. There's a lot more of the intangibles [that are] hard to recreate in the workout environment. For the big guys, it's a little bit easier to evaluate."

Simmons, whom Ainge called "long, athletic and versatile", is a projected first rounder who played center for the Wolfpack but would likely find himself at power forward in the NBA based on his lack of size. Simmons just finished his sophomore season, and said that he only finally came to a decision to hire an agent and stay in the draft last week when he became confident that he'd be a first rounder and then found an agent with whom he was comfortable.

Simmons' most notable trait may be his unusually long arms. He's listed as having a 7'4" wingspan, which is rather large for a guy who's listed at 6'9".

"It was measured in New York, in Philly, and it was measured here," Simmons said. "Before that it was 7'3"."

More bigs will be on hand Saturday morning for another round of workouts.