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C Byron 'B.J.' Mullens (Levanga Hokkaido Sapporo - Japan)

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B.J. Mullens a gifted 7-footer, but production lacking
Big Man, Big Gamble
by Keith Langlois

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Ohio State center B.J. Mullens will be drafted exclusively on long-range potential after a lack of production during his one year in college.www.slamonline.com

EDITOR?S NOTE: Pistons.com continues its draft series with the sixth of a dozen profiles of players who figure to be under consideration by the Pistons for their pick at No. 15 in the first round of the June 25 draft. Today?s installment looks at Ohio State center B.J. Mullens.

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - Since replacing Jim O?Brien at Ohio State, Thad Matta has been a recruiting dynamo who has benefited from a renaissance of basketball talent in football-mad Ohio. Especially impressive has been Matta?s ability to land big men who were labeled as NBA prospects long before they set foot in Columbus.

The latest in the Ohio State production line is B.J. Mullens, who became the third big man in as many years to stick around for only one season along the banks of the Olentangy River.

And Mullens presents NBA talent evaluators with a 7-foot dilemma. He?s a complete enigma, a legitimate 7-footer with a great frame, soft hands and wonderful athletic ability who had marginal impact in the Big Ten despite the conference possessing little in the way of NBA-caliber frontcourt talent.

Yet in a draft with very few sure things, for teams picking late in the lottery and thereafter, the temptation to gamble on the upside of an athletic 7-footer will be great ? even if the team that takes him is fully aware that Mullens has a greater chance to flop than others who?ll still be on the board.
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PISTONS: Big Man, Big Gamble
 
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Another prospect to keep an eye on is Ohio State 7-footer B.J. Mullens. His stock is going up. He is very athletic and has a nice upside. He worked out for the Bulls two weeks ago, but he may be gone by the time the Bulls draft at No. 16.
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Chuck Swirsky Blog - Del Harris retires after 50 years - ESPN Chicago

Mullens Getting Positive Buzz: No single player has helped himself more in the individual interview and workout process than B.J. Mullens. As HOOPSWORLD reported two weeks ago, Mullens is a surprise prospect in the lottery portion of the draft and his stock seems to be climbing. Mullens' individual workouts drew rave reviews from league executives, and his athletic game has really turned some heads, with some scouts openly questioning where B.J.'s newfound athletic game was at Ohio State. Mullens' dance card is filling up fast and he may actually start turning away requests as it seems he's going to be selected in the top 16 picks.
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http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?story_id=12832
 
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FrancisSawyer said:
In particular: "Mullens' individual workouts drew rave reviews from league executives, and his athletic game has really turned some heads, with some scouts openly questioning where B.J.'s newfound athletic game was at Ohio State."

:smash:
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played on a team with no pg, no pf and split time with a decent player in dallas lauderdale.
state line reads 9 pts 5 rbs in 20mins a game. i mean low stats (in theory) but driven by the time split between dallas and bj. reality is they did not mix and match well together. the high/low and other sets didnt work well with the rest of the team. no true pg hurt, influx of wing players, etc. reasonable gms see that.
 
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Mullens Picks Moves From K.G., Nowitzki
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Posted By Sean Deveney

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Ohio State's B.J. Mullens is one of four prominent freshmen to put his name in this year's draft, and could well wind up being the last of the four chosen. But he's a very athletic player who measured 7-1 at the NBA combine. Sporting News' Sean Deveney talked with him about the decision to enter the draft and what kind of impact he could have on the league.

Q: How much leg work did you do before deciding to leave after just one year of college?
A: I did not do much leg work. I knew coming in that all I would need to do was go out and do the best I could in these workouts and everything would be taken care of from there. I knew I had a chance to impress these teams that I've been working out for. I am a 7-footer who can do some stuff, you know? So, hopefully they're impressed.

Q: Are there players who, when you watch them, you think, ?You know, I could do that??
A: There are guys I like to watch to try to pinpoint the moves they do, because I feel like I can do those kinds of moves if I practice them. There are moves that Kevin Garnett does that I like a lot. There's moves that Dirk Nowitzki does that I like. I think that's something I can do, to target those kinds of moves and focus on developing them for myself, in my own way.

Q: Have you gotten much advice on this process?
A: Older players have given me advice. I talked to Greg Oden a little bit about this process last year before the season started. He basically told me to work hard and it will pay off.

Q: There aren't many Big Ten guys in this draft, it seems.
A: It's a hard conference, one of the hardest in college basketball. But I think I am the only one here. There are a lot of good sophomores going back, so it is going to be harder next year. But hey, I am happy to be representing the Big Ten.

Q: You've been working with Joe Abunassar, who is well-known as a trainer of NBA players. What's he been doing with you?
A: We worked out a lot with my abs and glutes. To be honest, I did not realize how much those are used in basketball. I mean, your glutes? I get a little sore, but I am used to it now.
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SportingNews.com - The Baseline
 
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Tue Jun 09, 2009
Miss You, B.J. Mullens: Pro stardom hiding, somewhere
By Eamonn Brennan

"Miss You" -- which took a few days off there; blame it on senioritis -- is The Dagger's fond farewell to the players whose futures will soon collide with the NBA.

When I need good tempo-free stats, I check out Statsheet.com. That plug has a point; bear with me. Usually, because typing in an entire address or clicking a bookmark is so very taxing, I'll merely go to the Google toolbar in the top right of my Firefox browser -- another plug, like it matters -- and search, say, "Jeff Adrien Yahoo!" Or, in this case, "Jeff Adrien statsheet." The player page pops right up, I click it, and bam, I'm looking at basketball statistics. There are probably quicker ways to do this.

This morning, when I hit "B.J. Mullens statsheet," a funny thing happened: Despite an entire year in college basketball, the first result was Statsheet's brief little high school recruiting info page. The second result? Mullens's 2008-09 year with the Ohio State Buckeyes. For most players, not only is it the other way around, but the high school page doesn't even return a result.
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Miss You, B.J. Mullens: Pro stardom hiding, somewhere - The Dagger - NCAA Hoops - Rivals.com
 
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Mullens in the lottery?

B.J. Mullens pulled out of a mass workout in New Jersey today, which the Hoopsworld site interpreted to mean that "he is hearing enough interest from teams in the lottery that the risk of injury outweighs the benefits of working out in New Jersey."

The same site reported earlier this week, before Mullens worked out in Detroit, that the "consensus on Mullens is he is more skilled than expected, but he's getting labeled as hot and cold -- showing flashes of brilliance in some workouts and showing less than impressive results in others.

"The Chicago Bulls are more than interested, and several teams are intrigued by Mullens' size and ability to shoot the ball. Any team that takes him will do so knowing he's a work in progress, and that might make him attractive to teams in the 12 to 20 range that may want to stash Mullens for a year and develop him."
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Mullens in the lottery? (Hoops & Scoops: an OSU basketball blog)

http://www.hoopsworld.com/HeadlineStories.asp?lc=NBA&c=1&TEAM_ID=&PLAYER_ID=&hd=20090612#STORY_19481
 
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I've been getting a lot of questions about this "Tweet," allegedly from Ohio State's B.J. Mullens, that he may have received a promise from the Bulls to be picked with their No. 16 selection. Mullens wrote: "ger ron tee in mj town look out 1 to 32 for slam dunk." From what I can tell about Twitter it mostly is about what you had for breakfast. I've also been told anyone can claim being anyone, so you never truly know if it's THE guy. But Mullens has been in to the Bulls and why say a guarantee at 16? Usually, you say if you received a lottery guarantee? So what's the deal? I have done substantial research on this and can assure everyone this is not true in any way: That the Bulls have made a guarantee to Mullens. This is not to say the Bulls will not select Mullens. They have interest in him. He's more than 7-1 in shoes and has NBA level center skills with good hands as an athlete who can catch and finish. Coming into the season, the freshman was regarded as a potential top five pick, but had an unimpressive year not starting. The playoffs have shown you cannot have enough big guys and it's not exactly a strength for the Bulls. But Mullens, young and with little play, is a long way off and not likely to help much for a few years. Is it worth waiting while having a team with some impatience for success after the nice first round playoff series? Yet, this isn't exactly a draft with a whole lot of starting or rotation players likely to be at No. 16. The Bulls have seen Mullens and I heard may see him again before the draft. I doubt they will be making any guarantees. Even about not trading the pick.
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BULLS: Sam Smith: Olympics could be in Derrick Rose’s future
 
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And, from the bad rumors department ... sounds like B.J. Mullens does not have a promise in Chicago. I reported on Friday that his agent insisted to New Jersey that the reason he pulled from the big workout there was because he had a promise in the "top 16." While I still have one source who insists he does, it doesn't jibe with the fact that he's working out in Philly (which drafts at No. 17) this week.
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NBA draft: The latest trade rumors and more - ESPN

5. Is this crop of players as bad as some people are suggesting?
DeCourcy: Actually, yeah. If they're talking about Ohio State center B.J. Mullens as a middle first-round pick, that's pretty bad. When Thad Matta was coaching for his team's life in the first round of the 2009 NCAA Tournament, he could find only 22 minutes for Mullens because of his struggles to rebound and defend in the overtime loss to Siena. Same deal in the Big Ten Tournament championship game, when Mullens played only 12 minutes against Purdue.

Sometimes when young players in Mullens' circumstance don't get a lot of time, agents and scouts will suggest that the coach is sitting on the player so he'll have little choice but to return to school. Well, Matta never expected a second season out of Mullens and was playing in two elimination games that everybody in the program badly wanted to win ? and yet Mullens didn't play half of either game. If that's a first-round pick, it's a bad draft.
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Starting Five: Remembering Bob Frederick | Sporting News
 
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June 18, 2009

The latest on Mullens

DraftExpress.com is skeptical that B.J. Mullens has a "promise" from the Chicago Bulls to take him No. 16 in the NBA draft next Thursday night. The rumor originated from a Twitter post Mullens made recently.

"That doesn?t seem to make a great deal of sense considering that he?s working out for Philadelphia at 17 later this week," DraftExpress.com wrote. "The talk of a promise started once Mullens pulled out of the New Jersey Nets group workout, but it?s possible he just didn?t want to deal with the prospect of matching up with Luke Nevill again. Mullens really struggled in the two previous group workouts that they went head to head."

Also, in an interview at the draft combine May 29, Mullens said the reason he's been measured at 7-feet-1 and change in his shoes may be because he's wearing thick orthotics because of shin splints.
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Posted by Bob Baptist on June 18, 2009 11:48 AM
Hoops & Scoops: an OSU basketball blog
 
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