Roy Hibbert is a rare 7-foot senior and, unfortunately for Hibbert and the state of college basketball, he will be drafted at least 10 slots lower than he would have been had he come out after his junior season.

He has a long show hand in the post, makes himself a big target, and gets wide and low when need be.  There were an uncountable number of times when Hibbert had positioning under the basket, and Georgetown?s wings didn?t feed him the ball.

He is more physical fighting for position than he was earlier in his career, but he needs to be careful not to do it unnecessarily against smaller defenders to pick up cheap fouls the way he excessively did in the Davidson game.

Hibbert struggles in the post against stronger defenders but continues to develop and gain more confidence in his abilities.  He works hard to get good position and has a really solid hook shot that he can attempt with either hand.  The right-handed  soft touch and high arc hook is really clean, and the left one has good touch but is not quite as coordinated and is more susceptible to being blocked.

I love his hook shot, but he must work on keeping it higher from the start and elevating with it more since he usually releases it from his ear.  The width of his body is what gets that hook shot off as much as his height.  Getting that shot into more of a classic jump hook will also prevent his most common miss of leaving it short on the front rim.

He should reverse pivot more frequently to give himself more space to work and also setup his face-up game.

He has become more physical and sure-handed with the ball although he is far from being a corporeal force.  Hibbert still must too often take an unnecessary gather dribble before going up for a dunk on an open lane.  There are also a whole of dunk opportunities for a player of his size that he doesn?t capitalize on, lacking that burst of energy to get to the rim.

Hibbert doesn?t bring the ball down, however, when he catches a post entry lob.  He consistently leaves it high and finishes quickly.

He will occasionally bust his shoulder into the defender when he has position, and he is really good at getting players onto his hip to get into the paint or create a lane going baseline to the rim.

Hibbert doesn?t do enough ball fakes to setup up and under moves.  His moves in the post are primarily horizontal, but that?s more of a situation where he doesn?t use what he has rather than not having the move in his arsenal.  There was a play late in the season in which he went up and under going baseline out of the left block and finished a great reverse.

He has average athleticism and is almost more athletic in the air when getting his body on defenders.  He won?t speed up and down the court and fly through the air, but he is agile and coordinated in the ways that matter on most possessions on the basketball court.

He moves well from the block up to the perimeter but labors a little bit going from block to block.

He has really good footwork on the pick and roll but doesn?t call for the ball when he?s open rolling to the hoop, another sign that he lacks a killer instinct.

He is a surprisingly good ballhandler in the halfcourt.  He has good confidence in either hand and even has a little flair with it, spinning into the lane from the top of the key.

Hibbert is a tremendous passer for a big man because of all the experience he?s had in John Thompson III?s hybrid Princeton offense.  He finds cutters and spot up shooters really well and should have a great assist/turnover ratio.  He makes the obvious passes well and also instinctually completes the more difficult passes.  He will do an excellent job getting the ball to open weak side cutters.

He?s also picked up little maneuvers like sealing his man to allow dribblers through to the basket without getting cut off by big shotblockers.

Hibbert defends the high pick and roll well even though he doesn?t have the best lateral quickness.  He sometimes tries to do too much when switches occur and is forced to guard a little guy.  Instead of giving some space and trying to stay in front, he?ll reach and get too ambitious.

He doesn?t close out quickly on perimeter shooters, but he?s smart enough to cheat ahead of time, anticipating the ball getting swung to get a step closer to the shooter.

He has good spacing between man and ball, but he?ll have to adjust to working harder and moving in and out of the lane to avoid defensive three seconds calls in the NBA.

Because of his awareness of lack of lateral quickness, he tries to play give face-up player space in mid-post by using his long arms horizontal to contest shot.

He prefers to defend the post entry pass on the high side when he can and does a nice job of it but doesn?t recover quickly enough if the lob pass gets through.

When defending the post player, he doesn?t bait on too many fakes, keeping his center of gravity low and quiet.  But at the same time, he isn?t nearly aggressive enough, and he allows his man to be at ease.

He?ll keep on blocking a fair amount of shots and affecting many more, but pound for pound and inch for inch, he is average.

Hibbert is not the reincarnation of Jabbar or even Ewing, but he is skilled enough offensively and should develop sufficiently on defense to be a fringe starter and definitely a rotation guy at the center position.

- Click here to see our full list of 2008 Draft Prospect Reports

Christopher Reina is the executive editor of RealGM.  He can be reached at Chris.Reina@RealGM.com where he may use your draft questions in a future mailbag edition