Rockets land Oregon's Brooks.

Byline: Bob Clark The Register-Guard

At the gathering of family and friends in Seattle where Oregon's Aaron Brooks found out he was the first-round selection of the Houston Rockets in the NBA draft, there was elation aplenty.

`God answered our prayers,' said Bernardean Hampton, Brooks' mother. `Words cannot explain how I feel.'

Brooks, who concluded his Oregon career in March by leading the Ducks to Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, was in Seattle with family and friends watching the draft on television. Before the Houston selection was shown on the ESPN broadcast, however, Brooks received a telephone call from the Rockets tipping him to the impending announcement.

`We knew,' his mother said of the reaction at the gathering. `Even before we saw his name, we were celebrating ... but we were still excited. We're still very excited.'

It was a common theme among those closest to Brooks.

`I am one happy parent,' chimed in Alvertis Brooks, Aaron's father, who was traveling when his son called. `It's a life-long dream come true for him.'

UO coach Ernie Kent, in Dallas for work with USA Basketball, saw the selection on television.

`I just think it's so well-deserved for him, for how hard he's worked for this,' Kent said. `I'm real happy for his family, to get this reward for all the support they've given him through some tough times and now they get to see him graduate (from the UO) and get this opportunity.

`It's a great day for him, his family and our program.'

Brooks was the 26th player taken in the draft, earlier than almost any draft prediction had him being selected. It was the culmination of a continuing rise for him, though, from being not even listed in the second round on some projections of the draft a month ago. That perception was quickly altered by a strong showing at a camp in Orlando,

Fla., and on through individual workouts for more than half of the league's 30 teams.

`The NBA is becoming a quicker game,' Brooks said. `I guess that attracted teams into picking me.'

Brooks didn't think his workout in Houston went well, however.

`It wasn't one of my best," Brooks said. `I was kind of wondering what they thought of me. But they've seen what I could do in college and they watched a couple of my games.

The pick by Houston was also considered a surprise because of its apparent surplus of point guards. The Rockets recently acquired Mike James to play the position, and he and Brooks join holdovers Rafer Alston, Vassilis Spanoulis and John Lucas III as point guards on the roster.

While the Rockets have two players of all-league caliber in Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady, a first-round exit from the playoffs prompted a change in coaches to Rick Adelman, the former Portland and Sacramento head coach. Adelman's playing style is generally up-tempo, which was expected to lead to changes in the roster.

`I'm ecstatic to be going to Houston,' Brooks said. `They have a good team. I'm looking forward to getting there.'

Brooks said that Adelman told him `they were interested in my game. They wanted to push the ball a little bit more. If that's what they want, they got the right guy.'

In Brooks, the Rockets drafted one of the fastest guards available, if also one of the slightest at less than 6 feet and 170 pounds. As a senior, he led the Pac-10 in scoring average (17.7) and moved up to ninth on Oregon's career scoring list. He also finished fourth in career assists, sixth in steals, fourth in three-point shots and fifth in free-throw percentage.

`We like his speed, which in today's NBA we know works,' Rockets director of scouting Dean Cooper said. `If you look around the league at the point guards who have success lately ... in Tony Parker and T.J. Ford, Chris Paul, guys like that, speed with the no hand-checking rule, speed in those situations we think is valuable. With the way coach Adelman is going to play with open offense and those types of things, we think speed is very valuable.'

Cooper said that Brooks `shot very well this year. He has some NBA-type shots, runner shots and things like that that apply to our game.'

After a sub-par junior season, Brooks was a standout in his final year, particularly in late-game situations. He hit last-second shots to defeat then-No. 1 UCLA and a week later did it to Arizona, in Tucson.