LAS VEGAS \u2013 Dailyn Swain knew very little about Caleb Wilson before they became teammates on NBA Draft Night \u201926 last month.<\/p>\n
He quickly realized how much he would like him, however.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because Swain \u2013 drafted No. 15 overall \u2013 is a worker. Wilson? He\u2019s a maniac.<\/p>\n
The fact that Wilson dropped 35 points in his Summer League debut on Friday night? Swain knew something was coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a confident player,\u201d Swain said of Wilson. \u201cI always talk about how hard he works and I just met him, so if he\u2019s putting that impression on me and we just got together a few weeks ago, you can tell he\u2019s (had this mentality) for a long time. All he talks about is getting better. The fist time I met him, after I got drafted and came around, we shook hands and he was like, \u2018Let\u2019s get ready to play.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what he wants to do. He\u2019s special. He knows what he can do. Even when he plays bad, he\u2019s going to play hard. (His debut) was not surprising to us because we see his habits.\u201d<\/p>\n
And now the rest of the league got a sneak preview.<\/p>\n
Not only did Wilson go 7-of-11 from three \u2013 the supposed knock on his game coming out of North Carolina \u2013 but backed up his tough talk about wanting to outplay the rest of the \u201926 rookie draft class. That started against Memphis on Friday and No. 3 pick Cameron Boozer (Wilson went No. 4).<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean Caleb is hunting everybody,\u201d Swain said. \u201cHe won\u2019t say it enough, but we can see it in his mentality, pre-game, during the game, like he\u2019s hunting these guys. He works so hard. I\u2019m not surprised by it. Guys like him are just like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Swain, well, better days ahead.<\/p>\n
New head coach Tiago Splitter \u2013 who wanted to coach the first few Summer League games and set a tone \u2013 threw Swain into the fire by starting him off as the primary ball-handler against a Memphis team that was throwing a few second-year NBA players out there, including All-Rookie First Teamer Cedric Coward.<\/p>\n
It was rough.<\/p>\n
They did get Swain off the ball in the second half and he did play with a bit more freedom, but his vaunted first-step attack in college didn\u2019t exactly translate to the big-boy league yet and he did go 0-for-3 from three-point range (3-for-10 from the field).<\/p>\n
Call it jitters, some fatigue, and hopefully more opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now is a time for mistakes, a time for growth,\u201d Swain said. (Splitter\u2019s) throwing me in the fire. He\u2019s giving me something new for when the real time comes, I\u2019m prepared for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Early impression<\/p>\n
The new-look Bulls got a preview of Splitter\u2019s coaching chops on Friday and gave good reviews. Splitter, who was hired last month, wanted to coach the first few Summer League games before passing it off to an assistant.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s always intense, he\u2019s always passionate about the game,\u201d Swain said. \u201cHe was a player, so like he did all this stuff before. He was always motivating, never like \u2018C\u2019mon guys.\u2019 You can see how much he loves the game so it was easy to go out there and give your all for a coach like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe played for the Spurs, he played for Coach Pop (the Spurs\u2019 Gregg Popovich), so his defensive details, that\u2019s one thing he\u2019ll get on you about. He wants to win and he was always a winner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vet crew<\/p>\n
The young Bulls had some true fans sitting courtside in the Friday debut, as team veterans like recently-signed Norman Powell joined Josh Giddey, Matas Buzelis, Tre Jones, Jalen Smith, Isaac Okoro, and Rob Dillingham in the expensive seats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2013 Dailyn Swain knew very little about Caleb Wilson before they became teammates on NBA Draft…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756899,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-756898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}