Tom Brady, at minicamp last month, says the team is ready to move on.

AP / Stephan Savoia

FOXBORO — Tom Brady was a good-enough baseball player to be drafted by the Montreal Expos out of high school in 1995, and while it took him a while to blossom on the football field, there’s no denying the quarterback that he’s become.

As a basketball player, though, Brady was a different breed.

Brady was asked after yesterday’s minicamp session behind Gillette Stadium about the Boston Celtics’ postseason play thus far and his own experiences on the hardcourt.

What position did he play?

“Ball hog,” Brady said, drawing laughs. “I was a ball-hogging forward who couldn’t jump. I didn’t pass much.”

The jokes aside, Brady and his teammates have gotten back to business during the minicamp, and yesterday marked the first time the reigning NFL MVP spoke with media since the Patriots’ loss in Super Bowl XLII.

“Any time you lose a game, it’s disappointing. That one, because it’s the last game of the year, it’s very disappointing,” he said. “But we’ve lost a lot of games in the past, too.”

Like his teammates who went through the upset loss with him and coach Bill Belichick, Brady made it a point to say the Super Bowl is in the past and that there will be no hangover. The page has been turned, Belichick has said, and it is time to focus on the 2008 season.

“The more you focus on what’s happened and what you can’t control, the less energy you’re going (to have) to focus on the things you need to improve,” Brady said. “You evaluate the loss and hope you learn from it and then you move on. You gain the experience and the knowledge of what got you beat, or in some cases what helped you win the game, and you try to incorporate those into what we’re doing this season.

“The guys who have been here, coach Belichick has really been preaching to us that what happened last year is something for us to learn from and move on from. We can only control what we did today, which, in this case, was a really good practice.”

On the subject of his injured right ankle, Brady said it feels “great. Yeah, it feels really good. I’ve been able to do pretty much everything. I’m still slow. I still can’t jump. I still don’t lift very much. That hasn’t changed.”

As Brady’s stature has grown — he was named an “Icon of Cool” in GQ magazine for his fashion sensibility and dates the top-earning supermodel in the world — it has become impossible for him to escape the public eye. .

It is the current “cultural climate” that Brady believes has led to near-constant coverage of every step and misstep made by the Patriots, as an organization, and the Patriots, as individuals, over the last several months.

Which is why he doesn’t feel the spate of headlines about the team — Willie Andrews’ arrest for marijuana possession days after the Super Bowl, Nick Kaczur’s recent arrest for painkillers and cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Spygate scandal that Sen. Arlen Specter continues to keep alive — will hurt the organization in the long run.

“No,” he said. “I think we’re just in a different cultural climate right now. I think with the amount of information that’s out there, everybody can grab hold of it instantaneously. We’re all human beings and we make mistakes. Everyone will make mistakes going forward and in the past. Like everything, you try to learn from the things you wish you didn’t do and understand there is a reason for making those decisions.”

At least one positive has occurred over the last couple of months. The Patriots re-signed Randy Moss, who caught a league-record 23 touchdown passes last season, his first with New England.

“Randy and I, we have a great relationship. I know this is the place where he wanted to be, and we wanted him. Usually the contract situations work out when that happens. He adds so much to this offense,” Brady said. “He’s really in great shape.”

As for what he’d like to see improved for himself and the offense, Brady wouldn’t offer much.

“We’re always trying to find ways to evolve as a team and evolve as an offense,” he said. “I’m not going to tell you guys because I don’t want the Jets to find out. But there is plenty for this team to improve on.”

smanza@projo.com