Wall is a rising star, but he's good at humility, too

CHICAGO - It is becoming a familiar pattern for top high school point guards around the country. You finish high school, play for John Calipari for a season, then become one of the most heralded rookies the NBA, welcomed with open arms.

Join the club, John Wall.

The 6-4 point guard did just about everything this past season for Calipari's 35-3 Kentucky team, and now he is the talk of the nation's capital as the Wizards most likely will make him the top draft pick on June 24.

He follows in the same mold as Derrick Rose, who played one season for Calipari at Memphis before going to the NBA via the first pick by the Chicago Bulls in 2008. This past season, Rose made his first All-Star appearance.

Chester's Tyreke Evans followed the same path as Rose, then was taken with the fourth overall pick by the Sacramento Kings. Evans averaged 20.1 points, 5.8 assists and 5.3 rebounds and was named the league's Rookie of the Year.

And now there's Wall, already dubbed "The Great Wall of Chinatown" by those in the Washington area. It's a lot to be thrown on a 19-year-old, but, like Rose and Evans before him, Wall possesses so much more than just basketball skills that most likely will help him handle the expectations that will come.

"I don't think that I know everything, and I know I'll learn so much when I get to the NBA," he said during the NBA combine in Chicago in which prospective draft picks worked out for and met with NBA teams on Thursday and yesterday. "I learned so much going to Kentucky for a year. I think I grew up a lot and became so much more mature while I was there for the 1 year."

His game is brash, with fullcourt drives that will lead to offhanded dunks over bigger opponents. His personality is not. He was humbled at age 9, when his father died of liver cancer and he struggled to cope with life without him.

"It was tough," Wall said. "I didn't really know too much about what death was and why people were going away and why God was taking them. Now I understand, but at that point, it was frustrating. I had so much anger and frustration in me. That's when my anger problem started to build up. I couldn't trust people. But my mom said, 'If you want to play basketball someday, you want to do something special and change your life around, you are going to have to change your attitude. Your dad is going to be watching down on you.' Once I figured it out, I said basketball is my escape. This is the best way for me to do it. And I think it turned out that way."

So hyped is Wall's game that rumors have free agent LeBron James wanting to go to whatever team drafts him.

"It makes me feel good [to hear something like that]," Wall said. "LeBron and I have a good relationship. He's one of the top players, with guys like Kobe [Bryant]. That just shows me that I'm a talented player, but I still know that I've got to work, and that's one thing that I'm going to keep doing, working hard."

Wall's future home was determined in Tuesday's NBA draft lottery, when the Wizards miraculously moved up to the top spot.

If, for some inexplicable reason, Washington doesn't take Wall with the top pick, the Sixers, who won the No. 2 spot, undoubtedly would scoop him up.

"That's a goal; everyone growing up as a kid, they want to go No. 1," Wall said. "But if it doesn't happen, I'm still going to reach my goal of playing in the NBA. No matter what pick I am, that's what I want to do."

Stardom certainly hasn't engulfed him yet. He walked quietly into the media room both days, greeted the throng of reporters who surrounded him with a smile and a cheerful greeting. He is mindful of his appearance - he has no tattoos and dresses neatly. And when answering a question, if he thinks he's talking too much about himself, Wall changes the subject to his former and future teammates - like a player trying to keep everyone on a team involved in a game he's dominating.

His immediate goals are clear. He will look to lead the team that drafts him from Day 1.

"They better be ready," he said. "My message is that I'm going to try to be a leader. I'm the point guard. I'm going to learn from every veteran and coach, just like I did at Kentucky. I learned so much in 1 year. Now I'm going into the NBA, and I can't go in thinking I know everything, because, if you do, your career is going to be short. I'm going to build a good relationship with everyone."

He is convincing, and has proof that he will do what he puts his mind to: He promised his dad before he died he would get a college degree. This past semester at Kentucky, he posted a 3.5 grade-point average.

"That's the key going in [to college]," he said. "I didn't just want to be a basketball player, I wanted to be a student athlete. A lot of guys could have, or apparently to me, floated by. But my key is to get the degree. That's what I promised my dad before he died, and that's what I want to give my family. I'll be the first person [in the family] to get a degree. I don't know when I'm going to get it done, but I'm going to make sure I get it."

Doubting him doesn't seem to be a good idea. Neither would be thinking he won't follow in the successful NBA footsteps of Rose and Evans.

When asked about new Sixers coach Doug Collins, Ohio State product Evan Turner, the team's probable pick at No. 2, said: "I remember in his first game coaching, he was all excited and stuff, and he had something on the side of his face, and Michael Jordan walked over and gave him a cup of water and told him to relax. I know that he was the first pick in the draft back in the day. I'm looking forward to sitting down and talking with him. I know he knows an awful lot about the game" . . . Turner's official numbers list him as 6-7 with sneakers on, and 213.8 pounds with 8.6 percent body fat. He met with Sixers officials, including president and general manager Ed Stefanski and assistant GM Tony DiLeo . . . Turner did not participate in workouts, but said he did lift some weights, shoot a little and got in some dribbling outside the hotel. *