For many, The Basketball Event is an annual summer time sideshow, a bunch of faculty alumni groups competing for a $1 million prize whereas creating tv stock within the canine days of the sports activities calendar. However for Cauley-Stein, who went from All-American at Kentucky to No. 6 choose within the 2015 NBA Draft to All-Rookie workforce to full-time starter to all of a sudden and mysteriously out of the league in what ought to’ve been his prime, an invite to symbolize his alma mater once more was life-affirming. When former teammates James Younger, the Harrison twins and Tyler Ulis joined him on a workforce whose identify was a nod to their outdated coach, John Calipari, La Familia took off on a nostalgia-fueled run just like the DeLorean in “Again to the Future.” It transported Cauley-Stein again to a spot the place he felt beloved and a time when he had hope earlier than he misplaced the sport — and himself — on the backside of a tablet bottle. “I might simply be lifeless,” Cauley-Stein stated. “In order that pleasure you noticed from me within the TBT is totally different as a result of I do know the bullet I actually dodged. I requested for assist earlier than it was too late, and I bought higher, however the basketball factor has been quite a bit more durable to get again. So after they requested me to do that, it was too good. It simply replicated these outdated occasions, simply precisely the way it was. Growth, I bought showered with all this love that I wanted, completely wanted and performed the perfect basketball I’ve performed in years. That s— was dope.”Supply: New York Occasions
