Sampson could be the type of guy who sticks with Sixers

'IT'S IMMINENT. After the last game, decisions will be made."

Those two sentences from 76ers coach Brett Brown undoubtedly will make some of the players on his preseason roster swallow hard. Tonight, the team will face the Detroit Pistons in the final tuneup for the regular season, which begins next Wednesday in Indiana.

So who goes and who stays? With so many players who might be better-suited for the team's Development League affiliate, the Delaware 87ers, there are tough decisions to be made. Twenty players are on the roster, so five must go by Monday. While it is anybody's guess as to which direction Brown and general manager Sam Hinkie might move, some things have become clear since training camp began on Sept. 30, while others remain very cloudy.

One of the brighter spots has been the play of 6-8 wing man JaKarr Sampson. While that name might be unfamiliar, that's where this team is.

"JaKarr has shown some signs of that conversion of a college 'four' man to an NBA 'three' man, and that is always the most difficult conversion," Brown said. "He has shown signs that it is in him to do that. I think that he, at the moment, would be among our better defenders, which is really what we're trying to most pay attention to this year, how we build our program. I think everybody from time to time has stood out, but he recently has caught our eye and is somebody we're excited to develop."

The 21-year-old St. John's product, who left school after two seasons but went undrafted, has impressed with his play thus far, but also is shining in an area almost as important to the organization as his defense. Sampson has a glowing personality, freely communicates with teammates on and off the court and is a more than willing listener. That might seem unimportant when you're trying to put together a contending team, but with losses expected to mount again this season, having a positive personality is paramount.

Sampson, who attended St. Vincent-St. Mary High in Akron, Ohio - the same school that produced LeBron James - was named the Big East Rookie of the Year. He played two seasons for the Red Storm, where he averaged 13.9 points and 6.9 rebounds. He is still very much a project offensively, with not much of an outside game, but he does possess some explosiveness when driving toward the basket.

Brown has often talked about needing to possess a specific skill set to stay in the league, and Sampson thinks he has that.

"I got to say defense. I feel like that's my ticket. Defense," Sampson said, with his ever-present smile. "Coach, that's all he talks about is defense. That's what he's building this program up from is defense. It's perfect. That's my specialty.

"I feel great to be here. I love the coaching staff. They are a fun coaching staff, and I'm learning a lot from them. They're patient, since we're a young team and it's just a good situation all around, especially at the wing spot, and when you're 6-8 and able to guard 'twos' and 'threes,' it's good."

Things might not be so good for Saint Joseph's product Ronald Roberts. The 6-8 forward has been sidelined much of training camp with a quadriceps injury, and, for a borderline player not able to participate, it sort of makes the organization's job easier as far as keeping him or not.

Roberts did practice for the first time in a couple of weeks on Monday and is a game-time decision for tonight's game. His coach seemed to lay out the team's plan for him with its limited evaluation of him.

"Ron showed a lot of promise in the summer and we still think that he is of great interest," Brown said. "I personally still get excited with our relationship with the D-League. We have a team that's right down the road, and we're all under one roof, and if some of these young guys, and it could be a few of them that we still hope to pay attention to, [we can] keep people in the program.

"Our coaching staffs work closely with each other. We genuinely pay attention and we genuinely look at that as part of our program and a really great feeder system. Maybe that's going to happen sporadically from time to time with a lot of them. It is hard to come in and play NBA minutes and make teams initially when you've been injured. But we have alternatives if that ends up being the case."

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