Why Willie Cauley-Stein Never Unlocked His Potential! Stunted Growth

Intro when I'm playing basketball I feel like Superman like right when he got to Earth Willie Trill kly Stein born Willie durman kly Stein Jr August 18th 1993 in a sport like basketball dominated by Giants the higher you measure off the ground greatly increases your chances to First be really good on the amateur level as not many can match you physically being closer to the rim and requiring best effort to meet the ball at its highest point to either score or defend the basket making the NBA for a guy 7 ft is usually a cakewalk and rightfully so because every professional team is looking for every Advantage they can get when jobs are on the line daily but just getting to the NBA shouldn't be enough for a competitor who has enough confidence to feel he cannot just dominate the expected but do it against other Giants that enjoy the same Journey as they did to the the highest level what separates you at a level like the NBA are all the little things most don't realize are important because they weren't taught that or didn't face that hurdle on the journey up or they don't have the correct work ethic to continue pushing to be great of course other aspects are involved like timing professional situation for example being on a team that doesn't fit your skill set or playing behind an already established guy at your position Etc these little things add up or not to give a physically gifted athlete the advantage on the top level and leads to them achieving their full potential and having a successful career as long as health permits them to Willie colly Stein many believe did not maximize his gifts once he got to the NBA and it led to a seven-year career where he played for five different teams signed on to a six but never played a game for them and was out The League at 28 if you ask fans that comment on Sports Willie kly Stein was a bus that never cared about basketball and only played because he was tall therefore pushed to pursue it they also say he didn't have a high enough IQ to last on the NBA level and didn't put in the work it took to measure up to his sixth overall draft pick in 2015 ahead of at least one likely future Hall of Famer I lean to disagree with those Assessments in its entirety only because as a Hooper I have to give another player the benefit of the doubt knowing how hard it is to make the NBA and how much you can't be a slouch mentally to last in a program like Kentucky 3 years then become a top 10 pick and play past your initial rookie Lottery deal in the NBA the fans aren't all the way wrong though as I do believe things could have been done here and there in colie Stein's control to help him meet the expectations he failed to over his career what happened let's talk about it salute to everyone that's requested this feature it's your boy JC stunning growth let's get it take a minute to like subscribe and comment on who I should do next Willie colly Stein is a 7 Foot History Center from speville Kansas moving to OA Kansas for his sophomore year in high school in the small town Willie was a larger than life figure in hoops literally and played his way into a fourstar recruit and scholarship offers from Florida Kansas state Alabama AMA and of course Kentucky where he ultimately committed and attended beginning fall 2012 I believe Kentucky saw shades of Anthony Davis in him a slender lanky big that could run the floor on The Fast Break catch lobs off the pick and roll defend at a high level around the basket and switch onto any position mainly guards and forwards and still be able to keep them in front perfect for where the game was at the time and seemed to be headed he played three SE Seasons at Kentucky where he was the player of the year on the defensive end in the SEC All Conference first team on both ends and First Team USA Today All-American he averaged eight points a little under two blocks and six rebounds his junior year before opting to leave early for the Stunt#1 draft stunt number one overly projected the tricky part about making the jump from the amateur level to the NBA level really has nothing to do with anything athletically related it instead has a lot to do with the position you're put in based on the potential they see in you prior to selecting you to a place you have no say so in choosing falling in a bad situation can mean a short career for the wrong person as it takes a lot of work and patience to continue working on your development so you're ready for when a better one comes along being overly projected means many of the situations at the top of the draft probably won't be right for you because your skills aren't developed enough to handle the responsibility of a team selecting you top 10 and expecting you to become a pillar to their rebuild which most top 10 teams are looking to do this is the epitome of Willie cystein back in 2015 basketball looked a lot different from it did in the 2000s this thing called positionist basketball made its way to the Forefront as all teams wanted to shoot more threes because of this guy and and wanted them to come from any position so bigs were stepping out and shooting them opening up the floor for anything to happen with the new found space on defense it was the same concept if the big can switch onto a forward or a guard on screen and rolls Advantage goes up when the player has to do less to defend also in and around 2015 the pick and roll with an athletic big that could slip for an alley finish was highly popular as guys like James Harden and Clint capella made this Play Look So Easy anyone could do it certainly a lanky high energy 7-footer used to scoring around the rim by assistance anyway with all these playing into the Willie cystein era he was overhyped as the next big thing especially seeing the success Anthony Davis was having at the time heavily compared to ad prior to the draft colie Stein was never a great scorer in college was expected to average at least a couple blocks a game and six rebounds is very poor for a seven-footer if you ask me he also never attempted a three-pointer in 3 years at Kentucky me looking at his production alone would have made me go in a different way with a top six pick of course he never amounted to what the Kings hoped he'd be as a player because he never should have been in that position as a lower pick with less expectations he might have fit right in as a role player and not a projected Stunt#2 Star St on number two wrong circumstances as a byproduct of overhype or over projecting Talent you can miss and place them in a situation that doesn't work in time for them not to lose opportunity Willie colly Stein's initial wrong circumstance was him being drafted to the Sacramento Kings who at the time played a slower system mainly going through Rudy Gay who was a system forward from his time in Memphis playing with back to the basket Mark assol and Zach Randol the Kings also had DeMark his cousins the projected star player on the team in coli Stein's first two seasons so in that time his fast-paced fitting skill set wasn't given an opportunity to shine he also had to play behind cousins early on so wasn't thrown in the fire and given early development opportunities although he was used to playing with other good bigs he wasn't the stepout shooter that fit well with cousins so having them both both on the floor clogged the lane making the offense even slower when cousins was traded to the Pelicans and the Kings drafted the Aon Fox who sped up the offense and gave them a point guard equipped to run the pick and roll effectively colie Stein began to shine averaging 12 points and about eight rebounds from 2017 through 2019 the kings were a non-playoff team but at least you could see the right way to use Willie coli Stein that all ended when the Kings decided not to resign him 2019 and he signed on to another mistakenly bad situation the one year with golden state where Steph Curry played just five games another point guard that could use coli Stein well but couldn't get on the floor with Stunt#3 him stunt number three not developing with the game another reason Willie col Stein didn't live up to the hype was because as the game evolved the way he played didn't bigs by the time he got to the league could step out and shoot the three or at least the mid-range but not coli Stein he barely attempted a three over his entire career or take Defenders off the dribble although he worked on those things in the off Seasons he never developed an offensive game in the post or otherwise not even as a lob guy or Defender like expected he averaged eight blocks for his career and four defensive rebounds to fans this is where they questioned his work ethic or even love for the game from the start he said himself that he never lifted a weight before the NBA draft process and is a guy interested in many things outside basketball maybe this is what led to him being complacent in his study of the craft whatever the reason he began to fall off at 26 years old and was out The League by 28 all in all there's guys among the great because of their physical blessings and then and there's guys that are great because they work to take those to another level Willie colly Stein had physical gifts but wasn't able to add to those for these reasons he played in the G league in 2022 and Italy since 2023 where he seems to have found comfortability and a new appreciation for the game never developing into the NBA star many hoped salute much respect it's your boy JC stun growth and I'm out [Music] [Music]