THE RIGHT FIT

After thousands of miles, what's the payoff for NBA hopefuls?

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Will Lopez be the right fit wherever he ends up?

Breakouts and busts—every draft has them. Yet they're not as easy to peg as you'd think. A player lights it up with his draft team. Breakout, no? But what if he later takes big cash to play elsewhere and then bombs? And how do you explain a guy who gets chased from one town only to become the toast of another?

In most cases, draft-day success depends on fit. All but the game-changingest of rooks are only one piece of a team's Rubik's Cube. Personal growth then rides less on talent than on blendability. Being drafted in the lottery is cool, but "falling" 10 spots to a team that needs exactly what you offer is way cooler.

It can take years to find the right mix. No GM is better on the assembly line than the Pistons' Joe Dumars. He knew, for instance, that Rip Hamilton, then a Wizard, would flourish in a system that allowed him to rub off screens from bigs like Ben Wallace. He's been on the All-Star short list ever since. "You get the player's version of why things didn't work out," Dumars says, explaining his strategy, "then make sure none of their reasons are in your environment."

So to the last guy in the greenroom, a bit of advice: Don't fret over who went before you. The only group that matters is the one you'll be joining.

CLEAN FITS
Jared Jeffries:
Meshed well with Washington's up-tempo, positionless Princeton offense. The Knicks thought he could be a conventional SF. Now he barely gets off the bench.

Kenyon Martin:
It's not the injuries that have kept him down in Denver. It's the fact that he didn't take J-Kidd and his alley-oop passes with him from New Jersey.

Wally Szczerbiak:
In Minny, Flip's O got him shots, and KG's D had his back.

Luke Walton:
Built for the Triangle, he got lost in Rudy T's freewheeling system. No one was happier to see Phil come back.

MISFITS

Tyson Chandler:
When he failed to become the next KG for the Bulls, the Hornets (and lob-happy CP3) were happy to make him the next Marcus Camby.

Boris Diaw:
Not much of a threat in the A-T-L, he hiked his shooting percentage by eight points as a part of Phoenix's small-ball frontcourt.

Mike Dunleavy:
Warriors fans were hoping for Larry Bird. Indy? Just an anti-Stephen Jackson. Lower expectations ended up in a career season of 19.1 ppg.

Beno Udrih:
The Spurs couldn't afford a third high-wire backcourt act. The Kings had only one, and he wasn't a PG.

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