New York ? When Kirk Hinrich was in third grade, his father told him to recruit some of his friends for a basketball team.

“We played in three-on-three competitions and youth leagues all the way from third grade on up,” said Jim Hinrich, who also coached his son at Sioux City West High School in Iowa.

By the time he was in fifth grade, young Kirk was playing on two teams in different leagues.

“I learned so much from my father at an early age,” he said. “That helped me so much on the court.”

Kirk even played up to higher levels.

In fifth grade, he played on one team in his own age group and played on another team with sixth graders. He continued to do that for the next two years. As an eighth grader, he couldn’t move up to a freshman team, so he played on two eighth-grade squads.

“I conducted the greatest experiment that a coach can conduct,” Jim Hinrich said Thursday night at Madison Square Garden after his son was picked seventh by Chicago in the NBA draft. “There’s a certain way I think basketball should be played. Fortunately, I had a son that had a lot of ability and bought into those things.

“Once he left me, he bought into what coach (Roy) Williams wanted. It goes to prove that team players have a place in the game. At Kansas, he could have scored more points. He could have scored more points at West High School. In my eyes and in coach Williams’ eyes, that’s not what we needed in order to have good teams. He bought into these things.”

Hinrich averaged a modest 5.5 points a game as a freshman when he was a part-time starter for Kansas University coach Roy Williams. The next year he averaged 11.5 points.

So when did the father realize the son had a legitimate shot at the pros?

“I think toward the end of his sophomore year he was continuing to improve,” Jim Hinrich said. “He was in a fantastic program at Kansas, and when you have the opportunity to play against the competition they play night in and night out, you really have a chance to improve and make gains. I thought he had a chance.”

Hinrich averaged 14.8 points a game as a junior and helped KU reach the Final Four. He heeded Williams’ advice and returned to KU for his senior year, rather than test the NBA draft as an underclassmen.

Hinrich averaged a career-high 17.3 points a game as a senior, helping KU reach the Final Four for the second year in a row.

Jim Hinrich said his son needs to get stronger to play in the NBA, but that it’s “just a matter of time before he’s able to do a good job for the Bulls.”

All the hard work Kirk put in with his father and Williams is about to pay off. As the No. 7 pick, Hinrich is guaranteed $1,821,600 in base salary as a rookie and $5,874,700 during his first three years in the league.

That doesn’t mean the rookie has it made.

“Most teams figure, ‘It doesn’t matter where we draft you. If you can’t do the job, we’re not going to keep you,'” Jim Hinrich said. “Kirk knows that. His entire career has been based on working hard and finding out what coaches want.”

The Hinrichs were happy that Kirk was drafted by a Midwestern team. Hinrich’s sister, Jill, lives in Overland Park, and his parents will be moving to Kansas City this summer. Jim Hinrich, 55, will coach this fall at North Kansas City High.

“We’ll go to as many games as we can,” Jim Hinrich said of his son’s new team. “But only 41 of them are in Chicago.”