CHICAGO \u2014 Friday was meant to be Caleb Wilson\u2019s routine introduction as a Chicago Bulls player. Say the lines, hoist the threads. Subtle, the way these things often go. If only such a word meant something in his lexicon.<\/p>\n
Instead, it felt like the emphatic staking of his claim in this Bulls rebuild. A continuation of the ambitious breadcrumbs he\u2019s dropped thus far \u2014 declarative, firm like an Adrian Peterson handshake. Wilson seized ownership of everything Bryson Graham is bestowing upon him as his first high-profile draft selection in Chicago.<\/p>\n
Wilson, 20 next month, is entrusted with giving a face to a culture still under construction. Managing expectations as a rookie amid a rebuild, while still weaponizing the ambition of a player who said Friday he expects to be the NBA Rookie of the Year, days after he told Chicago that it\u2019s time for a new GOAT.<\/p>\n
He was just granted access, and it already feels like Wilson is gatekeeping the gumption in the building.<\/p>\n
Caleb Wilson blends power, explosiveness and coordination in a way other players can\u2019t<\/p>\n
Sam Vecenie<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing a good team has a big part to do with me,\u201d Wilson said Friday at Chicago\u2019s introductory news conference for him and No. 15 pick Dailyn Swain. \u201cLike, if I want to make something happen, it\u2019s me. It\u2019s not the front office or anything like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s me on the court making this stuff happen. So my whole thing is just find a group of guys that believe in me and are gonna let me play, and I feel like that\u2019s all I really need.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why Wilson crossed his fingers to land with a consistently crestfallen franchise. Why he wished himself into the novelty and mystique of the month-old Graham era.<\/p>\n
Wilson believes basketball is better when Chicago is prominent. He wants to revive that feeling himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know I\u2019ll step in and be a leader by leading by example, and making sure that I get this city back where it was,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI\u2019m really excited for the opportunity. I feel like we have a great group of guys around us to make it happen. It\u2019s time to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pieces remain incomplete. Free agency looms. Cap space remains. The roster is unfulfilled, meaning the band of teammates Wilson hopes to lead isn\u2019t all in the building. His coach is uncommitted to a style without knowing what he\u2019s working with.<\/p>\n
However, Wilson seemingly doesn\u2019t need these things laid out plainly. Even with his limitations as a shooter, he does not seem married to any particular style of play, unlike blue-chip prospects before him. He wants to fit the mold asked of him. It so happens that his versatility should encourage creativity in both a new executive and a new coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019m just a basketball player,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI\u2019m gonna do what it takes to win, so getting the rebound, pushing it, creating and initiating transition, making sure I\u2019m a good screener, coming off ball screens, just doing what it takes to be a good basketball player. I try not to box myself into a role, and that\u2019s kind of how Tiago (Splitter) envisioned it as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the pre-draft process, Wilson noted that he\u2019s shifted the culture at every stop. But NBA locker rooms exist and operate on a different plane than anything he\u2019s known.<\/p>\n
They vary, from the verve of teenagers to the knee pain of graying veterans. The objectives and priorities aren\u2019t always aligned. Play styles and contracts, among other things, can bleed into conflict. In rooms of professionals, of grown men with agency, personalities prove volatile. Mixing them is delicate.<\/p>\n
Team building at this level feels impossible, before this CBA made it damn near crippling, because any added ingredient \u2014 resources, role players, egos, external forces \u2014 can change the taste of the melting pot.<\/p>\n
Graham\u2019s choice at No. 4 in Tuesday\u2019s draft felt obvious by deductive reasoning, but was still deliberated and soon believed in. Yes, he chose Wilson\u2019s leaping abilities. His first step. His length and potential. His violence at the rim and his bull-like charge toward it. He also chose Wilson\u2019s audacity and conviction. His hankering for superstardom. His understanding of growth and his embrace of the growing pains and everything that lies ahead.<\/p>\n
Graham chose Wilson at the inception of his vision. Wilson, as casually as he dispenses the word \u201cgreat\u201d and all of its variants, does not view that opportunity lightly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means a lot. You only get one opportunity to make a first impression,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cYou only get one opportunity to do what I\u2019m doing, have an NBA career. I take every moment that I have seriously. I wanna take every practice seriously, knowing that it\u2019s only a limited amount of time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know I\u2019m gonna be a leader who leads by example, making sure I try to come first in all the conditioning and testing drills, and do everything I can to be a leader that people respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
The implication of Wilson\u2019s widely anticipated availability at the Bulls\u2019 selection is that no matter the shuffle of the picks preceding him, Wilson was always staring upward at AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson and Cameron Boozer. That, in a draft of four-star bets, Wilson was always fourth.<\/p>\n
Wilson does not run on resentment, but he\u2019ll take any chance he gets to make a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, I played all of them, though,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cYou know what happened when I played them, so it doesn\u2019t really matter. I don\u2019t really care about the media. I\u2019m a competitor. \u2029And I get to play in the summer league, too, so whatever needs to be done to prove that I\u2019m on the same level, or that I\u2019m better, we\u2019ll do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Somewhere in the lofty parameters he\u2019s setting, there are still reminders that Wilson is a teenager. There\u2019s the sheepish smile with no facial hair to frame it. There are his influences, Nikola Joki\u0107 and Giannis Antetokounmpo, each 31, whom he \u201cgrew up watching.\u201d He recounts his basketball journey and traces the origin of his work ethic to when he took the sport seriously at 14, which was in 2021, a fact with the power to summon wrinkles.<\/p>\n
The expected dose of na\u00efvet\u00e9 is absent, though. He\u2019s measured and thoughtful. He\u2019s thought through the pathways toward his goals. He understands the process necessary for a rookie about to undergo the throes of a rebuild: the monotony, the midseason walls.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know it\u2019s a different game, and I know development isn\u2019t linear, but I got everything I need to be great, honestly,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cI\u2019m extremely athletic. I have a game that translates to the NBA well. Everything that I need to work on is stuff that I can actually work on.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not something that God has to give me, \u2019cause he\u2019s given me everything I need.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wants everything, but he does not expect everything to come to him. He\u2019s already made the distinction.<\/p>\n
That much feels clear in his first impression.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO \u2014 Friday was meant to be Caleb Wilson\u2019s routine introduction as a Chicago Bulls player. Say the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":764710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,5184,459,82],"class_list":["post-764709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chicago-bulls","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}