The Jazz have three second-round draft picks and just might spend one on Price - depending, naturally, on who else is available at the time.

Hunsaker, meanwhile, gushes.

"He's got a little buzz about him," the UVSC coach said. "He's got a very positive image amongst NBA people right now.

"Ronnie - he has too much," added Hunsaker, who also has coached Ball State and in the CBA. "He's a live body. He has a burst in speed. He gets in that shot so well. Feedback I've gotten from a number of NBA personnel (is) they're so impressed with his physical strength and his body."

That would not have been said four-plus years ago, when Price took his then 5-11 frame to Nicholls (La.) State with hopes high but no scholarship in hand.

He transferred to UVSC the next season, barely earning junior college all-conference honorable mention. But, Hunsaker said, "Ronnie's your kid that's just gotten better. . . . His improvement has been dramatic for the three years I've had him."

Nearly three inches and 30 pounds later, Price feels NBA-ready. And if it doesn't happen in the coming season, there's always the next.

"He can be an NBA player," Hunsaker said. "The timeframe of that occurring . . . frankly, a lot of these workouts are going to be very influential."

At last month's Portsmouth Invitational, a camp and tourney for college seniors only, Price had a couple impressive games and one that didn't go so well.

"He had one tough shooting game back in Portsmouth," O'Connor said, "but he had a lot of 'good shots.' I mean, he didn't take 'bad shots' - they just didn't go in."

Should Price really make it, though, it won't merely be because of his shooting.

Hunsaker sees him as a combo guard - "You couldn't count 10 'pure' point guards that play in the NBA," he said - but O'Connor thinks that at not-quite 6-2 Price must distribute much more than in college.

"He'd have to have the assignment of the ball some of the time, or more than some of the time," the Jazz boss said, "if he's going to play in the league."

A scorer's mentality, O'Connor added, "is not the easiest thing to change, but he's not a selfish player."

Whatever it takes, Price suggested.

"That's for them - to tell me what I'm lacking," he said. "I mean, all I can do is just continue to fine-tune every aspect of my game and just hope to get everything to an A-plus level."

No matter the size of one's school, that's a seemingly sensible equation.

"You know, the game of basketball is always going to be the same game - regardless of where you're from or what you're name is," Price said. "So I'll just continue to play the game of basketball, which I love so much."

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E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com