MEMPHIS

There were skeptics.

There were highly-regarded talent evaluators around the NBA who openly wondered how effective Shane Battier would be in the professional ranks, even after he was the national player of the year and led Duke to the NCAA championship last season.

Did Battier have the offensive skills to create his own shots in the pros? Could he play on the perimeter, or was he destined to be a "tweener" without a natural position? Most of all, was his collegiate success more a product of Mike Krzyzewski's system than his individual talents?

Those were the questions that dogged Battier going into last June's NBA Draft, and that's largely why Battier dropped all the way to the sixth pick, behind the likes of high-schoolers Kwame Brown, Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry.

But it's turning out that there was no need to be so skeptical.

Midway through his rookie season with the Memphis Grizzlies, Battier has already proven he has the talent and game to succeed in the NBA. Going into this afternoon's game against the Charlotte Hornets, he's averaging 14.9 points and 4.8 rebounds in 42 games, playing a team-high 39 minutes a night.

And the Grizzlies are finding out what Duke fans suspected all along: Battier's intangible contributions translate to the NBA game as well as they did the college game.

"I don't want to say other teams missed the boat, but I will say we got lucky," said Sidney Lowe, the Grizzlies' coach, earlier this weekend. "We were hoping he would fall to us because we knew we'd take him if he did, and we got lucky. We really got lucky.

"He's having an excellent year. He's put up numbers that you look for your veteran guys to put up. He's very intelligent. His work ethic is great. He's a leader. He's just a pleasure to coach because he knows what it takes to win. Now, he still has room to grow and he's certainly not as good as he's going to be, but he really is having a tremendous year. We couldn't be happier."

Battier smiles when talking about his rookie season so far.

He thinks he belongs, he thinks he's already won the respect of his teammates and opponents - and that's more important to him than any statistic.

"I feel very good," he said. "Very good. I'm playing and I'm learning and that's all I really wanted to worry about this year. Ultimately it's about winning and losing, but it's not about numbers for me this year. It's not about statistics. It's about understanding what kind of player I can be and creating a confidence level, and that's what I've done in the first half."

Lowe says he was convinced long ago that Battier would be a solid pro. A member of N.C. State's 1983 national championship team, Lowe still lives in Raleigh during the off-season and has watched Battier's game steadily improve over the past three summers.

The way Battier handled the disappointment of falling in the draft - even below Michigan State's Jason Richardson - spoke volumes to Lowe.

"He doesn't have a big ego, but certainly he felt he should have gone sooner," Lowe said. "And he handled it extremely well. In his press conference, he said he looked at it like the stock market. The high- school kids were like IPOs, they come out hot and then they fizzle later on. And he looked at himself more like a blue chip, like Fed Ex, steady his whole career. You just don't hear rookies saying things like that. It was a great analogy, very well put, and that's the way he's been."

So why were the skeptics so wrong?

"I think when a lot of people look at college players and try to determine whether they're going to be NBA players, sometimes they start with athleticism and leaping ability and things of that nature," Lowe said. "Those aren't his assets. But the areas where he's strong - his intelligence, his work ethic, his understanding of the game, his ability to shoot the basketball, his ability to defend - those things are all stronger than the average rookie and even stronger than some veterans in this league.

"I've always thought if you know how to play this game and you work hard and you understand your strengths and weaknesses, you're going to be successful. Larry Bird wasn't very athletic, but look how successful he was. It's the same kind of thing with Shane."

Battier said he gets no particular pleasure out of proving his critics wrong. He's not driven by vengeance or motivated by feeling slighted. In fact, he acknowledges that some of the questions about him were valid.

He said he's just happy that it's turning out the way it is.

"This is all about proving something to myself," Battier said. "I don't care who you are, when you come into this league you wonder if you can play. So to come in and establish myself as a player that's going to log major minutes, come in and do the things I've done already, that makes me feel good.

"I've been very fortunate to have the opportunity they've given me, because you don't improve sitting on the bench. I've been allowed to get out there and learn on the job and make mistakes and get better. I'm going out and giving the effort and playing hard, and that's all I can concern myself with. So I'm pretty satisfied."