By Ashley Scoby
Special to NKyTribune
Plenty of memories about driveways crowded the Joe Craft Center men’s practice court on Thursday.
Seven players from this year’s Final Four team attended a news conference and officially declared for the NBA draft – all of them fulfilling a dream they had had since they were children. Willie Cauley-Stein, Andrew and Aaron Harrison, Dakari Johnson, Trey Lyles, Karl-Anthony Towns and Devin Booker will all make the jump from college come summer.
“It’s been my dream since I was seven years old, and now that it’s time for me to make that move, it’s crazy for me to think about,” said Lyles, one of the three freshmen who declared on Thursday. “I would shoot in the driveway or mimic game-winning shots at the park and it’s just crazy to think about the fact that it’s happening now.”
Cauley-Stein also had a specific driveway memory: himself playing against an imaginary Tim Duncan to the tune of a 50 Cent song in the background.
And Karl-Anthony Towns had the same kind of belief that one day he would play against the game’s biggest stars.
“You dream of this moment when you’re young, when you’re playing on the court and you just think about those moments, like the one today,” Towns said. “Hopefully I could be in the same league as the greats like Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon and Sam Bowie. All these great players, you just want to be a part of the fraternity that they are a part of.”
In 2010, Kentucky set a record for most players taken in a single draft with six. If all seven of this year’s players are chosen, then that record would fall once again.
Projections are all over the place: Towns is a potential No. 1 pick. Johnson could be a second-rounder. The twins’ stock has risen and fallen more than a ride at Disney World, but at the end of this season, they’re probably somewhere in the middle.
Lyles was talked about as a potential top-five pick next year if he returned to school, but with his versatility and athleticism, he’ll still go relatively high as a freshman.
But the fact remains: Calipari will add seven more players to the ever-growing list of his guys that he’s sent to the league.
During Calipari’s post-season process, he sits down with each player individually, usually the day after the final game. He asks if they want him to “explore their options.” If they say yes, Calipari puts feelers out (this year, to “about 20 teams”) to investigate whether leaving college would be a good move.
Then, it’s up to the players to realize those old-school driveway dreams.
“During this year it’s about team … They shared, they sacrificed. It was about team,” Calipari said. “Now it’s about each individual up here making a decision not based on what’s right for this university. Not based on what’s right for me and our staff. What’s right for them and their families?”
Those seven decisions to all jump to the next level certainly aren’t exactly what’s best for next year’s team: The moves take away 87 percent of this year’s scoring, and 78 percent of its rebounding. Calipari’s term of “rebuild” (or “reload” depending on what mood he’s in that day) will be the word of the summer.
Over half the team that made history by winning its first 38 games of the season is leaving.
But for “glass half full” people, over half the team is also making their own personal histories. From driveway to NBA arenas, there are seven new stories for UK fans to follow.
Ashley Scoby is a senior journalism major at the University of Kentucky and a KyForward sports writer. She has reported on the Wildcats for wildcathoops.com, vaughtsviews.com andkysportsreport.com as well as for newspapers in Danville and Glasgow. She will begin a summer internship with Sports Illustrated magazine in New York in June.