Silver Bandits’ Hulett selected by Raptors

Victoria Sun

Thursday, June 29, 2000 | 10:29 a.m.

Silver Bandits coach Barry Hecker has always said that he would pay to watch DeeAndre Hulett play basketball.

Now another country might get to see Hulett in action.

Hulett, a 6-foot-8 forward who averaged 8.4 points and 2.6 rebounds in 56 games with the Silver Bandits this past season, was the 46th pick overall, by the Toronto Raptors Wednesday night in the 2000 NBA draft.

"I'm just so happy right now," Hulett said between sobs of joy from his mother's home in Saginaw, Mich. "I just don't know what to say.

"I spoke to them earlier today and they told me they were going to take me, but I wasn't sure if it was going to happen."

Hulett was the second International Basketball League player to be selected in the draft.

Soumaila Samake, a 7-foot-2 center who led the IBL in blocks with 2.7 a game and averaged 9.7 points a game for the Cincinnati Stuff, was the 36th selection and went to the New Jersey Nets.

Hulett was one of two players Toronto drafted Wednesday. In the first round with the 21st selection, the Raptors chose Michigan State forward Morris Peterson.

Per the NBA collective bargaining agreement worked out last September, Peterson stands to make $748,800 his rookie year. But because Hulett was a second-round pick, he will not have a guaranteed contract. He will most likely be invited to play on the Raptors' summer league team at Salt Lake in mid-July. How he does there will be important in determining his future.

Proving himself on the basketball court is something Hulett is accustomed to.

Ever since she can remember, Hulett's mother Sandra said even she had to defend her son from people who criticized him for his size.

"He's been struggling with basketball all his life," she said. "I've been going through this his whole life.

"He was always skinny, just little. People would always say he can't do this or he can't do that. He always was able to play though it."

Lenny Wilkens, the new head coach of the Raptors, must have seen something he liked in Hulett, because he made numerous calls to the Silver Bandits office during the week to inquire about the 19-year-old, and to get more game film.

Hulett said he worked out for the Raptors, Vancouver and Phoenix, and sensed that Toronto was the most interested.

"Sometimes in the second round, you have to gamble and draft talent," Raptors general manager Glen Grunwald said in a press conference. "We are going to bring DeeAndre Hulett along and see if he can be an NBA player."

After he was picked, Hulett said he spoke with Wilkens, who congratulated him and said he looked forward to meeting him on Saturday when Hulett will fly to Toronto.

"It probably won't dawn on me until I get there," Hulett said of getting the chance to play in the NBA. "I know a lot of guys in the draft that I played against in AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) games that I was better than that got picked before me, but I got my opportunity to show what I can do.

"Now I have to make the best of it."

How he'll fit in with the Raptors is something he will leave up to Wilkens.

"I really don't know," Hulett said of what position he might play in the NBA. "Because I don't know what type of role they want me to play."

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