Spurs' McClinton combines sharpshooting, defense
By Mike Monroe
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/spurs/Spurs_McClinton_combines_sharpshooting_defense.html

When you're the 51st selection in the NBA draft, you try harder to make a good first impression.

Jack McClinton, a 6-foot-1 shooting star from the University of Miami, showed up Thursday to meet his prospective bosses on the Spurs looking as if he had stepped off the cover of GQ Magazine. His dark gray, pinstriped suit was set off perfectly by a hot pink tie, and he wore a well-shined pair of black leather dress shoes.

Then he got a look at a piece of clothing that looked nattier than anything he'd ever seen in a fashion magazine: A white Spurs home jersey, No. 33, trimmed in silver and black, with “McClinton” emblazoned across the back.

“You want me to put this on right now?” he said to Spurs general manager R.C. Buford as he held up the jersey and posed for photos.

The game jersey will have to wait for the Spurs' first preseason game in October. In the interim, McClinton promised to work hard to prove to Buford and Spurs coach Gregg Popovich that selecting him was no mistake.

Like DeJuan Blair, who dropped to the Spurs at pick No. 37, McClinton has something to prove to the teams that passed on him.

“I'm not going to tell you my grudge list,” he said, “but I've got some teams that passed on me that I'd like to show they passed on a diamond in the rough.”

McClinton comes to the Spurs with one skill that can't be overvalued in the NBA: He is an uncanny shooter from long range. He left Miami as the all-time leader in 3-point accuracy in the history of the prestigious Atlantic Coast Conference, shooting 44.6 percent.

In three seasons with the Hurricanes, he made 286 of 650 college 3-pointers. He averaged 19.3 points as a senior, when he was a first-team All-ACC selection.

J.J. Redick was the first-round pick of the Orlando Magic after a four-year career at Duke that had some experts hailing him as the greatest shooter in ACC history. But even in his senior season he didn't shoot as well (42.1 percent) as McClinton did in his two full seasons with the Hurricanes.

Redick still holds the ACC record for free-throw accuracy (91.1 percent), but McClinton ranks second at 90.0 percent.

“It's been proven over the course of his career he's one of the best shooters in college basketball,” Buford said. “Shooting is a difficult skill to translate between the NBA and college because of the difference in the (3-point) lines. But if you really study Jack's shooting, he's already used to the NBA 3-point line. He's proven he can shoot from that range at a high level.”

There was another skill that drew Popovich's attention during McClinton's two workouts in San Antonio in the weeks leading up to the draft: defensive agility and intensity.

“As far as defenders go, he was probably the one guy who impressed Pop the most in all the workouts we had,” Buford said. “He came here with a purpose. From the minute he walked into the gym until the second he left, he was here with a reason. I'm sure he approached every workout like that.”

McClinton worked out for a lot of teams, but he thought the Spurs would be the team to take him when their first pick of draft night — the seventh of the second round — came around.

Instead, draft night turned into a hand-wringing test of his nerves.

“I was hoping San Antonio would take me at 37,” he said, “but DeJuan Blair was still on the board. Then, I started getting nervous. Thirty-eight, 39, 40. Oh, sheesh. Then 45, 48, 49.”

About the time the Spurs' second selection of the second round, No. 51, was coming up, ESPN cut to a commercial.

“It was funny,” McClinton said. “We had commercials on, and I got a text message from somebody who said, ‘Congratulations.' I said, ‘Congratulations for what? Nothing happened yet.'”

McClinton, watching in his room at his family's home in Baltimore, ran downstairs, somewhat perplexed.

“I said, ‘Mom and Dad, somebody said I got drafted by the Spurs.' But nothing had happened yet. Then (the telecast) came back on, and it was the Spurs' pick, and the guy said I'd been picked.”

McClinton wasn't wearing his pinstriped suit, which would have looked stunning if he had been on hand at Madison Square Garden for the selection process. He was, however, wearing a pair of lime green “Air Max” basketball shoes.

“I ran outside, did a sprint up and down the block. My neighbors probably just saw lime green going up and down the block.”