Hey Aaron Gray, how about stickin’ around a year?

All right, it’s been fun Aaron Gray.

We’ve all seen what you can do on the basketball… All right, it’s been fun Aaron Gray.

We’ve all seen what you can do on the basketball court and now you’ve had the chance to let NBA scouts do the same. It’s been real, but now is about the time where you decide to come back to Pitt for your senior season.

And it’s not just because you’re not ready for the NBA, Aaron. It’s also not only because Pitt needs you back for what could be a very promising 2006-07 season. It’s because you haven’t reached your potential yet and you can get there by spending next season in a Panther uniform.

I know, “potential” is the money word when we talk NBA. Remember Chris Taft? You may recall him from such breakout seasons as his 2004 Big East Rookie of the Year campaign. Finding his last two years at Pitt unnecessary, he and his agent thought they could parlay that pesky word into a lucrative lottery pick.

This from a player who Jamie Dixon had to plant on the bench down the stretch of each critical game of a terribly disappointing 20-9 season two years ago.

And just where is Mr. Taft now, you may ask?

He is playing out West, having already stumbled out of the gates for a less-than-below-average start to what is probably going to be a very laughable NBA career. The best prospect to come out of Pitt in decades now rides the pine hardcore, fittingly for Golden State, an underachieving team without a coach or a clue.

Now that’s not to say that this is going to happen to you, Aaron. In fact I’d bet the house that it won’t. You appeared much more consistent than Taft, particularly on the glass, while at Pitt and your attitude has been positive throughout your tenure. If we were all as successful as Chris Taft I think the Pitt name would be sent into the witness protection program.

But you’re not done developing yet, Aaron, and I believe that another year at Pitt will do you good.

Think about what you have already accomplished in only one year as a starter.

You led the Big East in rebounding (10.5 per game), including your first career 20-plus rebounding performance in a January win over Marquette. It’s true that at seven feet tall you can fall out of bed and record a double-double, but you were consistent enough to get 18 of those throughout the season.

You even averaged one with your 13.9 point per game clip, making you the first since backboard-shattering Jerome Lane to do so.

These numbers won you the conference’s Most Improved Player award, a nice reward for the strides you made in just 33 games as a starter.

But Aaron, that award is just supposed to be the beginning of, not the final stop on, your Pitt career. We can’t overlook some of the low points of this season, moments that remind us that you need some more time to develop before you start playing small forwards who aren’t that much shorter than you.

That 20-rebound performance against Marquette was largely because of a big day on the offensive glass. But we all know that it wasn’t all that marvelous. You were only rebounding your own botched layups, even admitting in the press conference afterwards that you only gobbled up so many boards because of your own “bad offense.”

Your next meeting with the Golden Eagles wasn’t so smooth, either. You missed some clutch free throws that would have given your team the lead, only to see Marquette hold on for a two-point victory.

And then there is what could be your final game as a Panther, a second-round loss to 13th-seeded Bradley in the NCAA Tournament. You were thoroughly dominated by the Braves’ Patrick O’Bryant, getting so frustrated that you were hit with a technical for slamming the ball after being called for a three-second violation. You were a non-factor against a team that you should have eaten alive. It put a damper on what was otherwise a marvelous 25-8 season for a young Panther team.

As a side note, O’Bryant is going to be in this upcoming draft and is an almost certain lottery lock.

As much as it pains me to bring up Mr. Taft again, let’s take a look at what happened to him when there were clearly others better than him at his position. Reports were that Taft — a true forward that was, admittedly, unfairly forced to play center in college — was dominated by Ike Diogu, a stud forward from Arizona State, in pre-draft workouts.

So the Warriors picked Diogu in the first round lottery. Well, we had a pretty good idea of where Taft, projected to go anywhere between No. 9 and, get this, No. 40 overall headed into draft day, would go.

Your range of projection isn’t nearly as large, particularly because your work ethic is better and your workouts have been head and shoulders above Taft’s. In fact, reports were that Taft didn’t even finish some of his hysterical workouts.

You also have a better attitude than Chris did. The NBA isn’t just a job to you: it’s the realization of a dream. Above that, though, you seem to acknowledge that it is a privilege and that the league will manage to carry on even if you aren’t to enter it anytime soon.

Then there is the team you would be leaving behind, Aaron. They’re young but experienced, excited but poised, and, above all else, they are exceptionally talented.

Dixon has the makings of a top-15 team here, but only with you anchoring the middle. I don’t care about the missed layups or the choking at the free throw line … you’re not done growing as a player and, to be perfectly honest, I just don’t think you are ready to leave the friendly confines of Oakland just yet.

You’ve said that nothing could satisfy you in the way that your senior season would. Don’t you think Chris Taft has to be wondering the same thing?

Geoff Dutelle is a senior staff writer for The Pitt News. E-mail him your draft thoughts at gmd8@pitt.edu.