When Willie Cauley-Stein attended elementary school, a teacher stood in front of all the children one day and asked them what they wanted to be when they grew up.
“An astronaut!” one child said.
“A veterinarian!” another said.
“A doctor!” said another.
Cauley-Stein didn’t hesitate when his turn arrived.
“I want to be an NBA player!” he said.
Now 21 years old and 7 feet tall, Cauley-Stein recently recounted that story when someone asked him why at least a few NBA executives seem to wonder about his dedication to the sport. To Cauley-Stein, the story is the earliest proof that his primary aspiration is to become a dominant pro basketball player.
The level of Cauley-Stein’s devotion to basketball, as well as his skills on the offensive end of the court, appear to be the only question marks hovering over him as the 2015 NBA Draft approaches. In his junior year at the University of Kentucky, the National Association of Basketball Coaches named him the National Defensive Player of the Year. His skill on defense and his overwhelming athleticism may prompt the Orlando Magic to draft him fifth overall on June 25.
John Calipari, the coach at Kentucky, said Cauley-Stein is a 7-footer who has the agility, speed and soft hands of a nimble, highly coordinated 6-foot-3 point guard.
“As I look at Willie,” Calipari said, “a team that really needs defense now to get them to another level, those are the teams that are going to say, ‘We’re taking him and then we’re going to mold him offensively and then we’re going to have an All-Star.'”
The Magic need to improve their defense, and Cauley-Stein might provide the shot-blocking prowess they lack. He can guard all five positions, and he can switch onto point guards when opponents run pick-and-rolls.
“Obviously, his greatest strength is his unbelievable athleticism,” said Mike Grove, who coached Cauley-Stein during Cauley-Stein’s junior and senior years at Northwest High School in Olathe, Kan.
That athletic ability also served as a crutch of sorts.
Because Cauley-Stein was so much more gifted than his opponents in high school, he sometimes cruised on sheer athleticism during practices and games. As a senior, he wasn’t even named to The Kansas City Star’s All-Metro first or second teams.
“The thing about him in high school was he was a guy that got away with a lot of stuff because he was so that much more talented than everybody else,” Grove said. “I think that his ability to play harder and more consistently harder improved dramatically at Kentucky. That’s why he’s a lottery pick. Everything’s there. He’s highly intellectual. He’s a great person. He’s a great teammate.”
At Kentucky, Cauley-Stein found himself competing in practices against the likes of Julius Randle, Karl-Anthony Towns, Trey Lyles and Dakari Johnson.
“At Kentucky, you have to be a competitor,” Cauley-Stein said. “If you’re not, you’re going to look weak. You’re going to look like you don’t belong. So going in there you have to go to practice like it’s a game or you’re going to look like a fool, and there’s always NBA scouts in there. You can’t go in there and not compete. Then you look lazy.”
And, yet, the questions about Cauley-Stein’s desire to play persisted at the NBA Draft Combine, where league executives and coaches asked him often about how much he loves basketball.
Part of the curiosity stemmed from Cauley-Stein’s reputation as a bit of a flake. In college, he once dyed his hair blond. It was the kind of harmless thing that most college students can do without raising anyone’s eyebrows; in the high-risk, high-reward world of professional sports, however, everything is put under a microscope.
His offensive game also has been put under a microscope — and for good reason. He made just 51 percent of his free-throw tries during his college career, didn’t show any shooting range and rarely showed refined post moves. He scored many of his points in transition.
Part of Cauley-Stein’s issues on the offensive end of the court, Calipari said, stem from the fact that Cauley-Stein didn’t start playing high-level basketball until a latter age.
Cauley-Stein grew up in the tiny town of Spearville, Kan., outside Dodge City. He didn’t move to suburban Kansas City until he moved in with the family of an AAU teammate, Shavon Shields, whose father is NFL Hall of Fame offensive lineman Will Shields.
Calipari added that Cauley-Stein is better on offense than most people think he is. Although Cauley-Stein still needs to improve his balance and his finishing at the rim, Calipari said NBA coaches “will zero in on that in one summer and he’ll begin to change.”
Cauley-Stein insisted he’ll put in the work.
“I don’t see myself not playing basketball,” Cauley-Stein said. “I don’t see myself not around basketball. There’s no part of me that doesn’t like basketball. I love it.”
jrobbins@orlandosentinel.com. Read his blog at OrlandoSentinel.com/magicblog and follow him on Twitter at @JoshuaBRobbins.
