This story seems in SLAM 251. Get your copy now.
Like all younger hooper, Caleb Wilson tended to look to the obvious sources for inspiration. “After I was youthful, I used to solely have a look at the celebrities—LeBron, Kobe, the massive names,” he explains. “However my dad introduced it to my consideration that there have been lots of people I didn’t learn about.”
A willingness to just accept his father’s steerage helps clarify how, when requested to call a few of the gamers whose video games he admires, the 18-year-old rattles off an inventory of fellows who would impress any hoop-savvy dad—and possibly a variety of grandfathers, too. “I watch Tracy McGrady, Penny Hardaway, John Stockton, Steve Nash, David Thompson, Alex English. I watch Clyde Drexler, Rick Barry, Chris Mullin and Run TMC, Nique, younger Shaq in Orlando, after which the Lakers—I may go on and on about Magic and Kareem…”
He smiles. “I can preserve going. I do know loads about basketball.”
In fact, his look on this journal means Wilson is greater than only a well-informed fan. The 6-9, 205-pound ahead at Atlanta’s Holy Innocents’ Episcopal Faculty can also be a consensus top-10 prospect within the 2025 class, with a sport knowledgeable each by that multigenerational collective of NBA greats and present stars like Nikola Jokic. With the sport’s positionless revolution firmly entrenched, it solely is sensible {that a} dude like Wilson would look far and extensive for inspiration. “I really feel like each participant has points you may be taught from,” he says, “particularly the nice ones.”
Wilson has an extended technique to go earlier than he hears his identify talked about in the identical breath because the aforementioned All-Stars and Corridor of Famers, however then he’s already come a good distance. He was a comparatively late bloomer in comparison with most of his friends close to the highest of the rankings, and the reminiscences of how far he felt from the sport’s elite gives ample motivation now that he’s among the many finest excessive schoolers within the nation. “I really feel like a variety of youthful youngsters look as much as me due to that, so I need to speak about my humble beginnings, my struggles as a younger participant,” he says. “I keep in mind not being the perfect participant—it sticks with me. Simply since you’re not good at one thing now doesn’t imply you may’t be good at it later.”
Wilson’s rise is proof of that, as evidenced by his manufacturing at Holy Innocents (he averaged 21 factors, 15 rebounds and over 4 blocks final season) and on the Nike EYBL circuit, in addition to his invite to this summer time’s USA Basketball U18 junior nationwide workforce camp. In fact, big-time packages have observed. As we went to press, Auburn, UNC, Stanford and Duke had been among the many favorites to carry him to campus in 2025.
Low-key off the courtroom—“I wish to play video video games, I watch a variety of TV, particularly anime, and typically I do Legos,” he says—Wilson is dedicated to the sport and often within the health club. Nonetheless considerably uncooked offensively, he’s athletic and savvy sufficient to nonetheless get his factors or get teammates concerned, and as these blocked-shot numbers attest, he’s obtained the potential to be a game-changer on D. Expertise and motivation go a good distance, after all, however finally, Wilson says the muse of his sport comes right down to nothing extra sophisticated than holding himself accountable and placing in work.
“I really feel prefer it’s simply self-discipline and dedication,” he says. “When you inform your self, I’m gonna do one thing, and also you observe by means of with it, you construct belief with your self. I grew to become true to myself about that: Caleb, you’re going to dribble each single day for half-hour, you’re going to do push-ups, you’re going to do sit-ups each single day. It permits for perception that you are able to do higher. You’re competing with your self.”
Portraits through Omar Rawlings.
