There is always some crossover in the NFL draft, oft-told tales of players jumping from one sport to professional football to make it work.
There are stories of minor-league baseball players who couldn’t consistently hit the off-speed pitch or couldn’t throw it hard enough to stay in the rotation, track guys who were more than fast enough to compete in college but found they were just a tick slow on the international stage.
They all have made the jump to the NFL. Some succeed, some do not.
But since Antonio Gates, who did not play a down of college football, went from Kent State’s basketball team to a Pro Bowl tight end, basketball has gotten plenty of looks in recent drafts.
Two tight ends who were drafted last season — Fendi Onobun and Jimmy Graham — were former basketball players who each had played just one season of college football. Onobun, who was selected by the Rams last April, played on a Sweet 16 hoops team at Arizona before playing one season of football at the University of Houston when his basketball career was over.
Onobun got noticed on a football level when he ran 4.48 and 4.49 40-yard dashes at 6-foot-6, 252 pounds. He caught just two passes in his only football season, yet the Rams and many other teams had seen more than enough potential and athleticism to put a draftable grade on him.
Graham, who played four seasons for the University of Miami’s basketball team before playing one season with the Hurricanes football team, drew notice with his work at the Senior Bowl in 2010 and was selected by the Saints last April with the final pick of the first round.
Graham finished his rookie season with 31 catches for 356 yards and five touchdowns.
This year there are a couple former hoops players getting long looks in this draft class as well. Julius Thomas, at 6-foot-4, 246 pounds, played four seasons for Portland State’s basketball team before playing one season with the football team.
Thomas, who also played just one year of high school football, set school records with the basketball team for games played, career wins, career field-goal percentage and played on two Big Sky Conference champions. This past season, he caught 29 passes for 453 yards and two touchdowns for the football team and showed enough to be invited to the scouting combine.
Well down the board is another intriguing player, Western Oregon wide receiver Demario Ballard. At 6-5-1/2, 219 pounds, Ballard recently ran a 4.49 40, ironically at the same Portland State pro day where Thomas did position drills.
Ballard played football and basketball at the College of the Siskiyous in Weed, Calif., before transferring to Western Oregon. In 10 games last season, he had 35 catches for 620 yards — 17.7 yards per catch — to go with five touchdowns.
He is so raw, however, that his coaches redshirted him in 2009, after letting him play in ’08, so he could learn the position.
Ballard is likely an undrafted free agent, but he has shown enough to climb on to some teams’ radar. Again, the draft is in many ways about potential over production, no matter if that production came in college football or not.
Jeff Legwold: 303-954-2359 or jlegwold@denverpost.com
