Now he wanders the streets of Seattle, tall but undetected. He was so bored, he filled his days looking for a home in the suburbs, finally finding one along the western shore of Lake Washington.

“It’s so beautiful here with the mountains and the water,” forward Nick Collison said. “I keep trying to remind myself how lucky I am to be in this position.”

The other day, he was finally with his team, if only for a day, flying with the Sonics to New York, where they played the Knicks and he saw a doctor about one more shoulder surgery.

In essence, he is taking a redshirt his rookie season in the NBA, soon to have his second “loose” shoulder repaired after dislocating the first in training camp.

AP File Photo

He shoots the ball normally now and has almost 100 percent range-of-motion in the repaired shoulder. However, the other shoulder operation will keep him on the sidelines until summer.

“I know what it was like to miss two months,” teammate Ray Allen said. “You begin to question your ability as an athlete, you begin to lose your identity. People wonder if you’re still with the team.”

A year ago as a senior at Kansas University, Collison scored 33 points against Duke in the NCAA Tournament, was selected the player of the year by the college coaches and was the only college member of the U.S. national team that won the world championship in Puerto Rico.

“Even against players of that ability, he was a guy who could do a lot of things in a game,” said Allen, who also played on the U.S. team. “Athletically, he is better than his appearance suggests.”

In the national team’s first workout, Allen said Collison, who is 6-foot-9, tried to score over Jermaine O’Neal, but got his shot blocked.

“I told him to go up stronger,” said Allen, “and he made his next shot. He can play, he can help us.”

Collison left the World Championships believing he could play productively in such elite company. Without the bad shoulders, he would like to have been considered for the Olympic team for Athens, possibly getting one of three open spots.

“If they wanted a better player than me, then they could easily find one,” he said. “But if they wanted to preserve the chemistry and get someone who wouldn’t be bothered playing just a few minutes a game, then that could be me.”

He was good enough to be the Sonics’ first pick in the first round last summer. They wanted a presence near the basket, they wanted a rebounder, they wanted somebody who could play without the ball.

“When I do get my chance,” said Collison, “I will be as prepared to play as any rookie could be.”

He had four years at Kansas when a lot of good players have half that many in college. He recently had his jersey retired and hung in the rafters of Allen Fieldhouse among those of Wilt Chamberlain, Danny Manning and Clyde Lovellette.

He’s a big deal there.

Most days here, he shoots with the coaches, does his rehabilitation when the team practices, and watches the games intently from the bench, the way his dad, Dave, taught him to.

During his four years at Iowa Falls High, with dad as coach, the Colllisons won 101 of 102 games. Nick was the state’s player of the year before heading to Kansas; Dave retired so he could watch Nick play.

At Kansas, Collison said he never missed a practice or a game, even though his shoulders occasionally would bother him.

“Should I have told the Sonics about my shoulders?” he asked, repeating a question. “Only if I had told them about every other injury I’d ever had. None of them kept me from playing; they didn’t seem important.”

Collison is made for the Sonics’ new style — if only he could play.

“We played fast at Kansas so we could get layins,” he said. “Here we play fast so we can shoot threes. If you have an open shot in the NBA, you take it. In college, you are encouraged to pass up a shot for a better one. The players are too good defensively in the NBA for that.”

Collison pulled on a wool hat with ear flaps that made him look like a tall private in the Russian army, heading slowly out into a soft drizzle and surprising anonymity.