Чикаго Буллс багийн шинэхэн тоглогч Калеб Уилсон зуны лигийн анхны тоглолтдоо 35 оноо авч, түүхэн амжилт үзүүллээ.
Баруун гарын бэртлийн улмаас таван сарын турш талбайд гараагүй Калеб Уилсон Мемфис Гриззлис багийн эсрэг тоглолтод 35 оноо, 5 самбараас бөмбөг авалт, 3 хаалт хийж өөрийгөө бүрэн нотлов. Хэдийгээр Чикаго Буллс 97-96-ийн харьцаатайгаар ялагдал хүлээсэн ч Уилсон гурван онооны шидэлтүүдээ амжилттай гүйцэтгэж, тоглолтын турш өндөр ур чадвар үзүүлсэн юм. Тэрээр тоглолтын дараа удаан хүлээсэн боломждоо сэтгэл хөдөлж, ялагдал хүлээсэндээ сэтгэл дундуур байгаагаа илэрхийлжээ.
Өмнө нь их сургуулийн багтаа гурван онооны шидэлтээр төдийлөн ялгардаггүй байсан Уилсон энэ удаад 11 шидэлтээс 7-г нь оновчтой болгосон нь олны анхаарлыг татлаа. Шинжээчид түүний хөдөлгөөн болон шийдвэр гаргалт нь мэргэжлийн түвшинд байсныг онцолж байв. Уилсон өөрийн амжилтад тайван хандаж, ялалт байгуулах нь хамгийн чухал зорилго гэдгийг онцолсон юм.
Тэрээр бэлтгэлийн үеэр Майкл Жорданы хөшөөг харж, түүнээс урам зориг авдаг гэдгээ дурджээ. Уилсон өөртөө үргэлж шалтгаан олж, уур хилэн, эрч хүчээр тоглолтоо удирддаг нь түүний амжилтын үндэс болж байна. Одоо тэрээр зуны лигийн тоглолтуудаар дамжуулан багийнхаа системд бүрэн дасан зохицохыг зорьж байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
LAS VEGAS — Caleb Wilson did not need to conjure motivation. Not now.
For five months, he’d counted the days until his next chance to prove himself. On Friday night, he scrolled back to look at the picture of himself in a blue hospital gown, sitting up in an inclined bed fresh out of a season-ending thumb surgery, his fist clenched to signal hope.
On most days since, Wilson’s lock screen on his phone has been set to a still shot of his stroll off North Carolina’s bus to play Duke, one of the final games of his college career. In his camera roll, all of Wilson’s emotions are there. The hurt, the longing, the ambition, the need for redemption. Everything he wanted his NBA debut to be, what he hoped it would feel like, was always on his mind.
“I cried before I played today,” the Chicago Bulls rookie said after tallying 35 points, five boards and three blocks in his Las Vegas Summer League debut, a 97-96 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. “It’s been five months to the day since the last time I played, and I’ve just been really emotional because I haven’t been able to play. I felt terrible because my team lost in the tournament and my coach got fired. It was a lot for me at that point.
“So coming out today, it just felt like I’ve been waiting so long for this opportunity.”
Caleb Wilson getting it done on both ends in NBA Summer League debut
The wait was worthwhile. For Wilson, and for Bulls fans who endured a flatlining franchise, Friday felt like an affirmation.
As the draft cycle progressed and he was widely considered the fourth-best prospect on the board, Wilson’s looming question mark was 3-point shooting. In his lone season at North Carolina, Wilson attempted 27 3-pointers and made seven of them. He made just as many in his pro debut on 11 attempts.
His first shot was an off-the-dribble 3, a nudge toward the defender that sagged off of him for a moment. The tough shotmaking only slowed when the ball stopped being funneled to him. At one point in the third quarter, Wilson drilled three straight 3s, two of them stepbacks.
In the back halls of the Thomas & Mack Center, Denver Nuggets forward Peyton Watson intercepted Wilson once he concluded his postgame scrum. Watson relayed what many whispered throughout the gym: none of Wilson’s audacious shots seemed unnatural or awkward.
His movements, his decisiveness, his release. Nothing looked out of character, even if his college sample determined it was. For a Bulls offense dying for everything Wilson provided, nothing felt out of pocket. Wilson was such a dominant inside-the-arc force that UNC never cared to waste his attempts on the perimeter. His volume, and even the absurd shotmaking, felt like an outlier Friday. His belief didn’t.
“I’ve shown what I can do in practice and in this setting, and I work harder than everybody else,” Wilson said. “ So (coach Tiago Splitter) lets me do what I’ve shown him I can do.”
The summer Grizzlies, headlined by No. 3 pick Cam Boozer, often stifled a Bulls squad slanted toward experimentation. Wilson’s fellow first-round pick Dailyn Swain, a wing who projects as a secondary ball handler who can feast when attacking closeouts and late-clock defenses, was tabbed as point guard. He brought the ball up against full-court pressure and proven pros like Cedric Coward.
On a squad devoid of playmaking, Wilson answered the bat signal. The well of initiation ran dry, and Wilson desperately created offense out of necessity. And still, amid his continuous scoring and breathtaking blocks, it rarely felt like Wilson had chances to inject his best attribute into the half-court offense: his otherworldly athleticism.
That’ll come, surely, as he plays with point guards and operates more as a screener and roller instead of as a defibrillator.
Because of how poorly archived the LVSL’s history is, questions of whether Wilson’s 35 points tracked toward being the highest-scoring debut in the tournament’s history floated throughout the gym. Before Marco Bellinelli’s 37-point debut in 2007 was eventually uncovered — with other potential rivals — Wilson was informed he had the best scoring debut ever.
“We lost,” he deadpanned. “That’s my goal, to come here and win. Of course it’s cool, but somebody is gonna break it one day like they always do.”
Wilson’s first words, in the infancy of a hopeful new Bulls era, were of boxouts and missed free throws. Self-criticism came first. Process took precedence. This was what Wilson missed, why he cried earlier in the day and glanced at his lock screen now and then.
It’s a privilege to feel this way, perturbed by a loss but heartened that he could again determine an outcome.
He’ll watch this game again, perhaps an unhealthy amount of times. He DVR’d it, he said, in a world where coaching staffs have access to game films on their iPads almost instantly. Wilson set his debut to record on YouTube TV days ago.
He targeted the three players drafted before him — Boozer, Darryn Peterson and AJ Dybantsa — as early as his introductory news conference. In the past, recruiting rankings and preseason polls occupied his lock screen. Wilson prefers to play angry.
“That’s when I play my best,” Wilson told The Athletic on Thursday. “When I’m mad, I got a reason. As long as I have a reason, I’m gonna play as hard as I can. I always got a reason. That’s my thing.”
He’s depended on that attribute through his rise, and Swain can sense that Wilson is hunting players. Driven by perceived disrespect that’s followed him for years. But Friday’s motivation, for once, was not centrally focused on who stood across from him.
Wilson merely wanted to return. To prove to those watching that he is as grand a prospect as his sentiments illustrate. To release the burden of five long months.
Motivation is perhaps the wrong word. What Wilson seeks when he looks at his lock screen feels closer to inspiration. Something to chase.
That’s why his other screensaver, which he’s toggled between since his arrival in Chicago, is of him standing in the East Atrium of the United Center. Alone. Looking up at the bronze statue of Michael Jordan and his immortalized “Jumpman” sculpture.
“I’m looking at his statue, seeing his legendary history, just knowing every day when I wake up and look at that, that’s what I’m striving for,” Wilson said. “No matter how tough I feel, no matter how my body feels, that’s what I’m looking for.”
Wilson will always find his reason.
