You close your eyes and he almost sounds like Jerry Sloan too.

“Hopefully,” Kirk Hinrich said, trying to suppress a smirk, “I’ll get to touch the ball a couple of times.”

Hinrich was referring to being chosen for the rookie game, part of the NBA’s All-Star weekend Feb. 13. His teammates included Cleveland’s LeBron James and Denver’s Carmelo Anthony, the most-hyped rookies in this season’s class.

“Those guys,” Hinrich said, “are going to be fighting over it.”

Hinrich understands. He always has. Roy Williams, his coach at Kansas, used to say Hinrich was too unselfish at times.

If anything is certain with the Chicago Bulls, it’s that the point-guard position is in good hands. Hinrich is averaging 11.7 points and a team-high 6.3 assists (ninth in the NBA) per game. He regularly frustrates the toughest opposing guards in the perimeter-heavy Eastern Conference.

“I feel I’m kind of meant to play in Chicago,” Hinrich said. “The city is blue-collar. It’s how I play. I’m a guy willing to do the little things. I’ve had to work for everything I’ve ever gotten. And to play in front of fans like we have who come every night even though we haven’t been winning, it motivates you.”

Hinrich might never receive the accolades or attention that goes to fellow rookies James and Anthony, both of whom seem destined to be All-Stars. But don’t be surprised if Hinrich joins them one day, just like another overlooked farm kid who didn’t say much but became a walking punch in the nose for Bulls’ opponents.

When Hinrich was in college fans chanted “Harry Potter” for his shaggy-haired, bookish appearance. He has been compared with ex-NBA guard Jeff Hornacek, but he may be as close to Jerry Sloan as anyone ever will get. He’s a laconic, fearless, tough-minded, unselfish competitor, appreciated by teammates and opponents.

“He’s real quiet around people he doesn’t know real well, particularly media,” said Seattle’s Nick Collison, Hinrich’s teammate through high school AAU ball and at Kansas. “But the thing about him is he’s not scared of anybody. People look at him and think he’s from Iowa, he’s not big and doesn’t look athletic, and they expect to intimidate him.

Cleveland's LeBron James, left, drives against Chicago's Kirk Hinrich. The two teams met Monday night in Chicago. Hinrich, a Kansas University product, is averaging 11.7 points and 6.3 assists per game. His assist average leads the team and ranks ninth in the NBA.

“But he defends as well as anyone I’ve ever seen or played with. Kirk gets the stereotype of the white guard. . . . But guys try to rush him and he goes right by them. He loves it when guys pressure him and play him physical.”

This was the sixth consecutive season the Bulls didn’t have a representative in the All-Star game, but they can smile about Hinrich.

“I knew coming in nobody expected much from me,” said Hinrich, the No. 7 pick in last June’s draft. “There wasn’t much buzz, but I knew I could play at this level.”

It always has been that way for Hinrich, the coach’s son from Sioux City, Iowa, whose greatest thrill remains leading his dad’s high school team to its first state title.

He wasn’t supposed to start at Kansas after backing off his commitment to Iowa State when coach Tim Floyd left for the Bulls. But he was a starter before his freshman season ended.

He was a notoriously shy, quiet, intense kid who feared public speaking and even being called upon in class. His dorm room, besides the obligatory poster of Anna Kournikova, was covered with pictures of family and friends. He dates the same girl he has since high school.

But on the basketball court he’s such a committed competitor that Kansas’ Williams once told him he thought he had the talent for the NBA if he could harness his intensity.

“We can be joking about something, then we get to basketball and he just stops,” the more outgoing Collison said. “There’s no joking about basketball with him. His freshman year he was struggling, and some days he wouldn’t leave his room. I worried about him.”

Hinrich has had to adjust to losing with the Bulls, though it’s not easy because of his demeanor.

“The first time I knew about him,” Collison said, “was in an AAU tournament (for kids) 19 and under and we’re 16. There are all these McDonald’s All-Americans with their uniforms and matching shoes, and we’re these kids from Iowa with the ratty uniforms and Kirk takes on the best guy and we win by 20.

“He was so fearless. I remember one time in college he gets hit in the eye. There’s blood in there and we find out the next day he has a concussion. So he’s holding his left eye after he got hit and with one hand still is dribbling and making the passes. He never came out of the game.”