Safe Pick

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - Ricky Rubio’s name first bubbled up on the Internet a few years ago when, at 16, he began leaving his mark on Spain’s professional league. Any skepticism about his ability to compete at the NBA level evaporated last summer when he held his own against all comers as the point guard for the Spanish national team in the Beijing Olympics.

He’ll be long gone by the time the Pistons pick at 15, and chances are so will another teen whose name and game have been well known to NBA scouts for years – Brandon Jennings, who dodged the possibility of academic ineligibility as an Arizona freshman by signing to play professionally in Italy last season.

That still leaves a half-dozen or so point guards in play for the Pistons and other teams picking from the mid- to late lottery and through the middle third of the NBA’s first round.

And there is no clear consensus on the pecking order just yet, with the draft still five weeks away. So whatever those players – including Davidson’s sweet-shooting Stephen Curry, North Carolina’s heady Ty Lawson, Syracuse’s tough Jonny Flynn, UCLA’s gifted Jrue Holiday, Wake Forest’s explosive Jeff Teague and Virginia Commonwealth’s battle-tested Eric Maynor – can do to separate themselves between now and June 25 could be the difference in a dozen draft slots and a few million dollars over the life of their rookie contracts.

Lawson might be the surest bet of the bunch to have a long and productive NBA career, at least if a resume of college success counts for much.

Lawson contemplated leaving North Carolina after his sophomore year, came back and had not only his best statistical season – 16.6 points, 6.6 assists against just 1.9 turnovers, shooting .532 overall and .470 from the 3-point arc – but answered a lot of questions about his ability to lead a team.

And Lawson was at his best in Carolina’s biggest games. In Carolina’s early-season rout of Michigan State in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge, he had 17 points and eight assists with no turnovers. In the second round of the NCAA tournament – the only March Madness game where Carolina wasn’t in complete control throughout – Lawson, after missing the previous four games with a toe injury, rescued the Tar Heels with 23 points, six assists and no turnovers.

For the tournament, he averaged 20.8 and 6.8 and committed only seven turnovers total, four of them in the national semifinal romp over Villanova. In the title game against Michigan State, Lawson’s seven first-half steals set the defensive tone.

Lawson has played with more NBA-level talent at Carolina than any other point guard. NBA scouts can weigh that both ways. While he hasn’t had to carry a team and likely benefited from not having to face the constant double teams that players like Curry and Maynor did, he is practiced at the subtleties of knowing how to share ball distribution among equally gifted players and played consistently tough teams in Carolina’s loaded national and ACC schedule.

While Lawson might have the lowest ceiling of anyone in the six-player group of point guards after Rubio and Jennings, he’s even more certain to have a higher floor. Translation: While Lawson might be least likely to play in an All-Star game, he’s also least likely to be viewed as a bust two or three seasons from now.