01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Three mini-NBA columns for the price of one ...

RYAN GOMES

Ryan Gomes can play in the NBA?

Tell us something we don't know.

But maybe it took until he had 17 rebounds against Portland, or 19 points and 12 rebounds against the Lakers in Sunday night's beauty of an NBA game, one of those games that was a reminder of the way things used to be between these two old rivals.

Maybe it's taken Doc Rivers and the Celtics this long to figure out that the more Gomes plays the more he makes things happen. Maybe it took the last few games to convince them what those of us who watched Gomes play for four years have known for a long time: that somehow, some way, Gomes will find a way to be effective, regardless of the league he's in.

From the time he became a legitimate NBA prospect, Gomes was labeled the classic "tweener," too small to be a power forward, not quick enough to be a small forward. It's the worst possible landscape to dwell in, especially in a league where it is so much about size. This is why he fell to the second round of the draft.

In many ways he's an acquired taste: the more you see him play, the more you like him. He's never going to impress you with his athleticism. He's not going to be in a lot of highlight films. Little kids aren't going to want to wear his number. But he's a basketball player in ways that a lot of guys in today's NBA are not, all those young guys drafted on potential, in the league although they've never really done much to deserve it.

And there's an irony here about Gomes, one I suspect the Celtics are not aware of. When he was a freshman at PC he was going to be red-shirted, the coaching staff not real sure what they had. Until they threw him in a game at South Carolina one night, and he quickly put up 15 points and eight rebounds. Suffice it to say he never came out for the rest of his career.

Déja vu all over again?

We'll see.

Right now, though, Ryan Gomes is having his own little coming-out party in the NBA, proving he belongs, proving that if he gets minutes he will make things happen.

PAUL PIERCE

I've never been a particularly huge Paul Pierce fan. Too selfish. Too pouty. Not someone who ever seems to make anyone around him better. So it came as little surprise when the word was last summer that the Celtics wanted to move him, that his meltdown against the Pacers and the woeful way the Celtics had ended their season had soured the ownership's feelings toward him.

Now?

Now he's playing the best ball of his career.

He's always been a great scorer, as good a pure scorer as there is in Celtics' history, someone who gets to the foul line as well as anyone in the entire league. But he used to have a lot of 6-for-19 games, a lot of games with a low shooting percentage, a lot of games when he took bad shots in key situations, a lot of games where it too often seemed as if it were Pierce against the world, a matchup Pierce couldn't win.

In many ways he seemed the personification of the spoiled young star, the product of a flawed team that let him shoot the ball every time he touched it, the poster child for NBA cluelessness. It's the reason he and Rivers clashed last year; Rivers wanting Pierce to mature, both as a player and as a leader.

That is happening.

He has been very good all year, and what we are seeing now is a player at the very top of his game. Sunday night he had 39 points on only 20 shots. In many ways it was the new Pierce, a leader making tough shots, willing his team to a great win, capping off the kind of road trip that would have done this team in just a couple of weeks ago. Someone who arguably is playing as well as anyone in the NBA right now.

LAMAR ODOM

He's always been a tease.

From the first time I ever saw him play in an AAU game at Providence College to the one year he played at URI, Odom always was about the future. His size. His skills. His sense of how to play. His charisma. No wonder that in his brief time at URI he often was referred to as "The Package." You looked at Odom then and saw all the possiblilities.

Now it's seven years later, and in many ways Lamar is still a tease.

Yes, he's a very good NBA player. Yes, he has his money. Yes, he's fulfulled much of the promise he showed in his time at URI. Still, there's the sense his potential is always out there just past his reach, some Oz that's always off in the distance somewhere.

Sunday night was just another example.

He was good but not great. He made a key 3-pointer with 15 seconds left but only was 2-for-7 from the free-throw line, most of his misses coming in the fourth quarter. Most of the game you wouldn't even know he was there.

Some of this, of course, is that he plays alongside Kobe Bryant, which is akin to singing backup to Elvis. For all his wondrous ability, Kobe doesn't do anything for anybody else, and most of the time Odom is little more than an afterthought. Maybe it's that simple.

But there's also the sense Odom is a victim of his own versatility. The NBA is often about doing one thing very well. Odom always has done many things well. But one thing? Not really. In a sense, he's the perfect complimentary player, someone who makes the people around him better. But that can get lost in the shuffle in the NBA, especially on a team where it's Kobe's show.

Maybe this is what Odom is: very good, but not great. Very good, but not what I thought he was going to be, as if it's seven years after he left URI and he's still a bit of a tease, as if his vast potential still seems to be just a little out of his reach.

breynold@projo.com / (401) 277-7340