Carolina's Hansbrough is not beyond compare

SAN ANTONIO - Ah, how soon they forget.

It's not as if Tyler Hansbrough is the first 6-foot-9-inch, pedal-to-the-metal forward North Carolina has ever had. Yeah, he never takes off a possession. Everyone knows that. But the fact is the Tar Heels once had an eerily similar player, a guy who hit the NBA like a tornado before tearing up his knee. Tyler Hansbrough will be fortunate to have an NBA career as good.

"Are you talking about [Mitch] Kupchak?" inquires Dick Vitale, who ought to be ashamed of himself for never once drawing a comparison between the two during three years of Hansbrough watching.

Well, yes, I am. I am indeed talking about the general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers, who, as a blue-bleeding Tar Heel, simply has to see the Young Kupchak in every Hansbrough movement, even if he is not allowed by NBA law to utter a public comment about an undergrad who is not (yet) eligible for the NBA draft.

"I'd love to talk," Kupchak explains, "but I don't know what I can say and can't say."

Well, he could start by recalling his own playing style, but even that is beyond his conversational grasp.

"I can't even remember," he protests.

So, allow me, Mitch, to refresh your memory.

You averaged 18.5 points and 10.8 rebounds as a junior and 17.6 points and 11.3 rebounds as a senior and you were first- team All-Atlantic Coast Conference each season. You earned a gold medal on the 1976 Olympic team. You were the Washington Bullets' first-round pick in 1976 and you spent nine full seasons in the NBA, plus one (1982-83) you spent rehabilitating a surgically repaired left knee. You were a valued member of the 1978 world champion Bullets, making a key 3-point play with 1:30 remaining in Game 7 against the SuperSonics and your team clinging to a 3-point lead.

You were playing so well in the first half of the 1978-79 season that one writer (me, actually) declared you to be the league's MDO, or "Most Drooled Over" Player. (Did I actually write, "Nobody, but nobody, influences more games than this young monster."? Apparently, yes. I hope I had a good reason. At any rate, I seem to remember more about those days than Mitch does.)

You were never the same again after hurting your knee. Today it would be snip, snip, and back in the lineup, but it wasn't that way a little more than a quarter-century ago. But you always gave that 110 percent, and in 1985, well past your prime, your sheer physicality and toughness represented a desperately needed X-factor as the Lakers, who had been pushed around by Boston the year before, took out the Celtics in six games.

Neither the 1978 Bullets nor the 1985 Lakers could have won championships without your presence.

Is it coming back to you, Mitch?

Now along comes Mitch II in the form of Tyler Hansbrough, a 6-9 kid who is absolutely relentless and who inspires teammates to play harder, as you once did. Didn't Tom Henderson, who never went to the floor, thank you for inspiring him to do just that in pursuit of a loose ball that wound up as your big 3-point play that night in Seattle?

That's what Dean Smith, remembers, anyhow.

Oh, and by the way, your old coach is buying this idea of the Hansbrough-Kupchak connection.

"I hadn't thought of it," the great man admits. "But you're right on the button. Mitch did play hard on every possession. I never have favorites, but if I had one, Mitch would be right there."

Now that Dickie V. has had a chance to mull it over, he'd like to hop on to this little bandwagon.

"I can see it now," he declares. "Kupchak was very physical. He had good passing ability. But I don't think he had all the uncanny, unorthodox moves and stuff in the lane that Hansbrough does. Some of the shots Hansbrough gets off, I can't believe. Kupchak was very tough, and he played very hard, but I don't think I've seen anyone in my 29 years at ESPN who plays as hard on every possession as Hansbrough does."

Hansbrough truly is the personification of effort and energy expenditure, and his approach to the game might have been best summed up during his freshman year by the inimitable Tom Brennan.

"Hansbrough is like a big golden retriever," said the former Vermont coach during one of his ESPN gigs. "Every time I see him, I think he's going to go run and jump into the lake."

Kupchak was just like that until the injuries changed his career, and altered the general perception of his impact on the NBA, not that he ever complains. "I've had a wonderful life," he says. "I've been with the Lakers for 27 years. How many people in this business can say anything like that? I know that today they probably could have repaired my knee, but I can't look back on my career with regret."

Kupchak can't talk about Hansbrough, but there is nothing to stop him from pulling for the alma mater, or commenting on the Final Four. "Of course, I'm rooting for Carolina," he says. "I was at a golf tournament for a Lakers charity the other day, and I had on my Tar Heels hat. So did James Worthy. We took a pretty good beating."

As for the Final Four, Kupchak has this to say: "It should be a great Final Four. You have four great programs, all big-time. And each team has a gifted player." The rules being the rules, he can't name names. So let's take a flier and say he's thinking about freshman Derek Rose of Memphis, freshman Kevin Love of UCLA, junior Brandon Rush of Kansas, and, of course, junior Tyler Hansbrough of the ol' alma mater.

I'm calling out Dickie V., right here and now. The next time he's rhapsodizing about Hansbrough in the studio, he should remind people that Carolina fans, one in particular, have seen it all before.

"It would be nice to see Mitch get some recognition," says Dean Smith.

Maybe we can even help Mitch Kupchak remember his own career.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at ryan@globe.com.