CHICAGO -- Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski keeps telling Nolan Smith to stop apologizing for what he is.
"What position am I? I'm a guard," Smith said Friday. "Just a guard, a guy who can make plays."
While that's quite affirming, it's probably not what NBA teams respond to: The NBA wants reassurance it knows what you are before it drafts you in the first round, an act that guarantees rookies at least two seasons of lucrative employment.
Being a point guard and being a shooting guard are very different occupations.
The NBA wants super-quick point guards with great ball-handling ability. The NBA wants shooting guards to have small forward size, some ball-handling ability and big-time shooting range.
Smith fits neither of those descriptions.
He's a touch taller than 6 feet 1 in stocking feet. Certainly he has play-making skills, but nothing like what the NBA sees in Duke teammate (and likely top pick) Kyrie Irving. Smith will make the occasional 3-pointer, but no one mistakes him for former NBA sharpshooter Reggie Miller.
Still, that doesn't mean he'll wash out in the June 23 NBA Draft. As Smith said Friday, there's something he does as well as anyone in this draft.
"I just compete," Smith said during interviews at the NBA Draft combine. "Whenever I step on the court, I give it my all. I think people notice that."
Actually, that's more important than it might sound. Much as the NBA is a test of skill, it's just as much a test of toughness.
The most common refrain from a player at the end of his rookie season is he never understood how physical the pro game is.
Smith seems prepared for all that, as he's seen the NBA up-close. He was a ball boy for the then Washington Bullets when his dad, Derek, was an assistant coach there.
Derek Smith had a long NBA career but a short life. He died at 34 in 1996 of a heart attack on a cruise liner, with Nolan watching the tragedy. A month before the NBA Draft, Nolan already feels cheated that his dad won't be there to watch him be drafted, too.
"He's the reason I ever picked up a ball," Smith said, "and he won't be there to witness it. That's sad."
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