Caleb Wilson doesn’t just dabble in some light reading of the stoicism philosophy.
No, the Bulls rookie is all in, discussing it in length on Tuesday, and going in-depth on the ancient Greek and Roman school of thought that focuses on happiness and resilience by, according to Wilson, “controlling what you can control, and making sure that in every situation I’m kind of above it. I’m not going to let little things deter me because I know I have a higher purpose.”
This is really a 20-year-old NBA rookie?
It is.
So is Dailyn Swain. And a few months ago, the two first-round picks (Wilson No. 4 overall and Swain No. 15 overall) couldn’t have been in two very different places. While Wilson was the talk of Summer League in Las Vegas, Swain was letting “Sin City” swallow him up.
His four Summer League games were atrocious and even worse, Swain was carrying his dismal play from one game to the next. Vegas had him in its grips and wasn’t going to let go.
He left Summer League shooting 4-for-31 (12.9%) from the field, 0-for-7 from three-point range, and a turnover machine. The amount of time Wilson let his new teammate sulk in feelings?
Almost zero.
“Dailyn looks way better,” Wilson said after the first official team practice. “We were here (in Chicago right after Las Vegas). We’ve been here the whole summer. We’ve been grinding here. Seeing him every day, seeing him working on the things he needs to work on, me too, working on the things I need to work on.”
One rook pushing the other, and to eye-opening results.
“It’s night and day,” coach Tiago Splitter said of where Swain was now compared to Summer League. “It’s not even close. He was not himself in Summer League and I think we all understand that. He’s been great. He’s going through the little steps that he’s got to do and doing a good job.
“He’s producing for us, he’s getting into the paint. I think he lacked confidence in the Summer League but right now he’s a different player. He’s being aggressive, being himself, being the player he was in college.”
A statement being made by the Texas product.
“If you check his history everywhere he’s gone, he’s taken some time to get adjusted to a level, to the team he played on. It happened in college, we talked to his coaches, and he’s just going to take some time to adapt. Once he’s acclimated and confident he’s a different player and that’s what we expect.”
That’s also what they’re getting through the open gyms the last few weeks and now practicing starting.
“Just learning from it, taking what I could get from it,” Swain said when asked about not allowing Las Vegas define him. “It’s been easy to flip the page.”
With a little help from his philosophical fellow rookie.
“It shows what kind of kid Caleb is,” Swain said. “Everyone can speak to that. He’s a great kid on the court but off the court. We had no prior relationship, we met on draft night, and through Summer League we built a really strong bond. We go get food every day, and not just him but (two-way rookies) Tobe (Awaka) and (Jaylin) Sellers. All of them have done a good job with that. They weren’t going to let me dwell on it.”
Does that mean Swain has shown enough to be penciled into a rotation spot? No, Splitter isn’t anywhere near that commitment yet. But Swain does have his confidence back and he’s got a plan.
“I want to impact the game on defense, guard the best player,” Swain said. “The offense will come, but the main thing is being a stopper.”
And control what you can control.