Former Georgetown Hoya Hollis Thompson was all of two-years old when Sam Cassell made his NBA debut with the Houston Rockets in November of 1993.

So, with Cassell serving as an assistant coach with the Washington Wizards, who have been putting 2012 NBA Draft hopefuls through workouts, including Thompson last Thursday, we are given a chance to crunch the age numbers as the two faced-off in a drill on the Verizon Center practice court.

Cassell will turn 43-years old this November, and Thompson turned 21 this past April; the difference between them — 21 years, 4 months and 16 days — is currently greater than Thompson’s age.

The drill was defensive in nature. Participating players were required to rotate properly on help defense as the ball was passed around. The final component involved the main defender rotating from helping in the paint to closing out on a wing player in the corner (Cassell) using proper technique.

From there, Cassell had free reign to relish the opportunity of scoring on a kid at least 50-percent less in age. And this wasn’t the first time Cassell has dueled with kids — previous battles have come against the likes of John Wall, Nick Young, JaVale McGee, and Andray Blatche — and it likely won’t be the last.

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One moment you’ll hear that NBA team pre-draft workouts don’t mean much, they can be just one of many contact points a franchise has with a player, much less game film scouting. The next moment it’s considered a “telling sign” when a player doesn’t workout for a certain team. Sign of what? Who knows. Are players disinterested? Trying to rig their draft stock? Are teams disinterested? Throwing others off the scent of their desire? Oh the game that’s played — what do all the conflicting reports mean Enes Kanter?

Both sides can use the perception of workouts to their advantage. And the media to a certain extent as well, I suppose. If you feed the monster pixels, we all whore for hits. Kemba Walker cancels his workout against Jimmer Ferdette for the Sacramento Kings … speculate amongst yourselves, Internets. Other players, less secure in their draft status, are just jumping into another window of opportunity, perhaps building a resume toward overseas interest. These workouts, just as anything, are all part of the process. Whatever that means.

Last Thursday, June 2, the Wizards worked out six players: Talor Battle (Penn State), Mike Davis (Illinois), Papa Dia (SMU), Austin Freeman (Georgetown), Justin Hurtt (Tulsa), and Ravern Johnson (Mississippi State).

Toward the latter third of the hour and a half session, the media is let in to watch, joining the already studying eyes of team executives overlooking the Verizon Center practice court while Flip Saunders and the coaching staff put the players through drills.

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[The Experimental McGee & Green - photo: K. Weidie]

Around 6:10pm, just 50 minutes before the Boston Celtics were to take on the Washington Wizards, a weary Doc Rivers stepped out of his office to meet with the media.  He exchanged a few pleasantries with the familiar Boston media, and then he got right down to business and told everyone that Kevin Garnett, Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce were going sit the game out.  The starters were going to be Delonte West, Von Wafer, Jermaine O’Neal, Glen “Big Baby” Davis and Jeff Green.

This was a curious move considering the Celtics went into Monday night just one game behind the Miami Heat for the second seed in the NBA playoffs.  The Heat had to visit Atlanta to play the Hawks, and the Celtics had a very winnable game (with their starters at least) against Wizards, who they had just beaten on Friday night.  Rivers seemed to be prematurely conceding that second seed to the Heat by removing his starters from the equation.   He explained his actions before the game.

“We’re gonna sit our guys today and try to get some rest and get ready for the playoffs.  The way were playing, we do need it, so we’re going to take it, plus we don’t have a lot of time.  We got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday [to rest our starters] and then Wednesday could be a great practice, so I’ d rather do that…The decision ws made in how we played last night [Sunday night's 100-77 loss to Miami].”

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