"Maybe you were one of the Cavaliers fans who did a double-take when Tristan Thompson's name was called as the fourth selection in the NBA Draft. Maybe you were expecting something different; a player who doesn't roam the paint like a handful of other big men on the rebuilding franchise, or a foreign player who has more experience and more intrigue.

Maybe you were like Samardo Samuels, the Cavaliers forward who played one year in high school with Thompson, and scowled his skepticism the first time the scrawny boy showed up at practice.

"Canada?" Samuels recalls saying, questioning Thompson's homeland. And then he demanded, "Who are these little kids?" of the two Toronto natives who joined St. Benedict's Prep in New Jersey that year.

"And then I saw he had some skills," Samuels admitted recently. "A lot of skills. He kind of plays the same way now, but he got older and bigger."

Now 6-8 and 20 years old, Thompson spent a year at Texas as a defensive force, was named Big 12 Freshman of the Year, and got enough attention that Cavaliers GM Chris Grant claims he's been tracking the long power forward since he was in high school. The fact that he was the fourth pick wouldn't have been a surprise if you saw what the Cavaliers' scouting team did: The team's scouts salivated over Thompson's 7-2 wingspan, his 38.5-inch vertical leap and his 2.4 blocks per game. (Though not so much over his 49 percent free-throw shooting.) "