Be quiet and listen, Jazz rookies advised

"The little bit that I know him, he's a great guy," added Harpring, who like Almond is an Atlanta-area high school product. "It doesn't seem like he has too much of an ego. He listens. He's what you'd want in a rookie."

Harpring, who entered the league out of Georgia Tech with Orlando way back in 1998, has some suggestions of his own for the fellow Georgian.

"The biggest thing with a rookie, and I was told this when I was a rookie, is just, 'Shut up and listen,"' he said. "Because you get the respect — from other players, veterans — when you don't say anything. It's the times when you get the rookies who are supposed to have all the answers already, and they talk back to you, (that) it doesn't leave a good impression.

"I took that advice," Harpring added. "I didn't say anything as a rookie. I just did what I was supposed to do, did my job. And if a veteran coach told me something, it was, 'OK.' I might not have agreed with it, but I certainly wasn't going to say anything. And it worked out."

Working his way into the lineup, really, is all the 22-year-old wants to do during his first NBA season.

Super shooting should aid the cause, as Almond was billed, along with Golden State pick Marco Belinelli, as one of the top two shooters in last June's draft.

"I definitely want to contribute," he said.

"I know from my college days it doesn't always happen right off the bat. I know that better than anybody," added Almond, who didn't start his first game at Rice until his junior season. "But I know how to hang in there. I know how to grind. I definitely want to contribute, but if it's later rather than sooner, so be it."

So forget, for the time being, trying to push apparent front-runners Brewer and Gordan Giricek for minutes at the 2 spot.

For now, instead, Almond's primary focus will be — and was last week during training camp in Boise — simply "getting the plays down" and "just trying to combine the structure of the offense with your own basketball knowledge and skill."

It can be a delicate balance, and no small task in the keep-it-in-your-head offense of Jazz coach Jerry Sloan and top assistant Phil Johnson.

"You don't want to be like a robot out there," Almond said. "But, at the same time, you want to be on the same page as everybody else."

Aided, though, by the fact that at Rice he also played in a system largely dependent on timing, cutting and ball movement, Almond anticipates fitting in just fine.

"At the end of the day," he said, "it's still all basketball. We're all basketball players, and once you get over that aura of 'This is the NBA' ... you realize that everybody is just kind of like you."

Except that this season they don't have to remember who likes chocolate and who prefers cherry-flavored filling oozing from the middle.

Preseason opener

Bucks at Jazz
Today, 7 p.m.
EnergySolutions Arena
Radio: 1320; TV: KJZZ

---

E-mail: tbuckley@desnews.com