Everybody says how important “team chemistry” is for professional teams of any sort. In basketball, my sport of choice, you have only five guys on the floor, and they play both offense and defense (the point of the Brett Favre anecdote from the previous column, for those who didn’t quite get it). With fewer members on the team doing the same thing, team chemistry is even more important.

Maybe that’s why you see so many “tag teams” of former college teammates playing on successful teams.

A few prominent examples are Clyde and Hakeem in Houston, who played on the Phi Slamma Jamma squad of U of Houston in the early ’80s (I’m on a first name basis with all professional athletes, as are many of my friends); the Arizona Wildcat trio of Kerr, Williams and Buechler now with the Bulls; the “Fab Two” with the newly renamed Washington Wizards, and a couple of years ago the Cyclone Trio of Stevens, Grayer and Alexander with Golden State.

So have these teams been notably more successful than other teams?

And even if they are, is it because of these guys in particular, or are they just being taken along for the ride?

In the case of Houston, they won their first championship without Drexler in the lineup, but he now is an indispensable part of their team. As evinced by numerous brilliant exchanges between the two, the chemistry is still there. But there are other important members of the Rockets team, most notably Barkley and Elie.

The Wizards would be cursed without Webber and Howard, as they are the Bullets’ offense and rebounding, with Georghe Muhresan contributing precious little except awkwardness on the court (off the court, those cologne ads are terrific).

The three Arizona alumni are critical members of the Bulls’ bench, but they certainly do not carry their team in the manner the above two duos do.

Of course, Brian Williams and Steve Kerr could probably provide a decent nucleus for a team, but since they have the greatest player to ever walk the earth (more scoring titles than Wilt, despite the fact that he is mid-sized and Wilt was the giant of his day) and his assistant, a pretty damn good player in his own right.

Actually, the two best duos in the NBA didn’t play together in college.

The aforementioned Jordan- Pippen duo, and their finals opponents, Malone and Stockton, didn’t play together in college.

But they have played more than a decade together in the pros. Perhaps that gives better teamwork because you play together in a pro environment rather than a college environment.

On other subjects, the draft is coming up with our own Kelvin Cato set to go high.

I predict he goes to the Cleveland Cavs, who have scouted him and are in desparate need of a big man.

Also, Wimbledon has started. I pick Mark Phillipoussis of Australia to win on the men’s side and Jana Novotna of the Czech Republic to win on the women’s side.

I’d like to see the two Moroccans, Karim Alami and Hichem Arazi, make a long run, for the simple reason that they would add some flavor to the game.

Creative enough?

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Jayadev Athreya is a sophomore in math from Ames.