NBA draft: Penn's Rosen begins uphill climb

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Zack Rosen wore a navy blue Sixers practice jersey with matching shorts as he walked to grab a Gatorade from a nearby refrigerator on Monday morning. After about an hour, the former Penn point guards first pre-NBA draft team workout was complete.

He took a seat next to the other two invitees, Villanovas Maalik Wayns (see story), whom he faced six times during his Penn career, and Ionas Scott Machado, a fellow St. Benedicts High School graduate.

Familiar faces surrounded Rosen at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, the Sixers practice facility located less than seven miles from his University City apartment. For just one day, he could allow himself to imagine the dream scenario becoming a reality. He could imagine himself as a Sixer.

Itd be wearing the red, white and blue all over again, the Colonia, N.J., native said. Now that my Nets are moving to Brooklyn, this is like my home away from home. It is my home.

Over the weekend, Rosen was back in his original home, participating in a 44-player combine hosted by the Nets in East Rutherford. It featured many of the other low-profile prospects doing everything they can to open the eyes of talent evaluators from any of the 30 NBA teams before the June 28 draft.

Monday, Rosen performed drills in front of a group of Sixers staffers that included senior vice president of basketball operations Tony DiLeo, general manager Rod Thorn and director of player personnel Courtney Witte.

They tested his ball-handling, his shooting, his one-one-one defense and his transition game, he said. During the 15 minutes of shooting open to the media, Rosen made NBA-range three-pointers with relative ease despite a badly bruised left thumb that he repeatedly grabbed in pain.

But little he could do Monday would change the perceptions of a staff he had already met and scouts who had already evaluated his brilliant four-year Quakers career.

If weve waited to see a 60-minute workout in the middle of May, we havent done our job as a staff, Witte said.

Instead, the meeting offered the team another chance to learn about the prospects' makeupswhats inside them, in Wittes words. Players were tested more personally and psychologically than athletically.

Asked his impressions of Rosen after the 15-minute standardized interview, Wittes face lit up.

Unbelievable young man. Unbelievable, he said, pausing. I wouldnt throw that lightly.

It was a glimpse inside Rosen, a deep thinker and tireless worker. In the two months since his college career ended without an Ivy League title, the 23-year-old has shifted his focus toward the NBA.

He has spent hours playing former teammate and roommate Rob Belcore one-on-one and studying NBA game footage using Synergy Sports Technology, according to his DraftExpress.com blog.

While not playing basketball, he has worked out with former Sixers strength and conditioning coach Jim Ferris six days per week: straight-away speed and jumping on Mondays; lateral movement and jumping on Wednesdays; and transitional running and jumping on Fridays, with three total-body lifts and yoga mixed in.

Those hours will now be replaced by the flight-and-workout grind of the pre-draft process. Rosen did not know when hed be traveling to each city on his itinerary, only which teams will host each workout.

No city will match Philadelphia, where Rosen became Penn's all-time assists leader and averaged 18.2 points per game as a senior. He smiled as he noted how he has kept everything in the Philly family," including his advisers like Penn coach Jerome Allen, one of just three Quakers to make the NBA in the last 20 years, and his agent, Temple Law graduate Leon Rose, the mogul who also represents players like Allen Iverson, LeBron James and Chris Paul.

On May 10, Rosen and Rose watched the Sixers series-clinching win over the Chicago Bulls from the second row of the Wells Fargo Center.

Philly appreciates the hardworking man, so it fits my profile, Rosen said.

At this point, the Palestra-to-Wells Fargo Center scenario is merely a pipe dream. For a player barely on the NBA radar before this year, perceived to be too small and un-athletic, even getting drafted is a long shot.

What should happen and whats supposed to happen, Rosen said, doesnt always happen.
E-mail Brian Kotloff at bkotloff@comcastsportsnet.com

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