By Adam Zagoria of ZagsBlog
PISCATAWAY, N.J. — John Calipari has had a slew of one-and-done players during his tenures at Memphis and Kentucky.
But he has to go back to his UMass days to find a proper comparison for 6-foot-10, 220-pound Kentucky freshman Anthony Davis.
“Marcus Camby,” Calipari said Friday at Rutgers at the first annual clinic to benefit The Brayden Carr Foundation. “Marcus Camby, same. [Davis] shoots it better. Marcus was bigger, but they’re both really good.”
Calipari said Davis has worked especially well in tandem with Terrence Jones, a projected first-round pick last year who opted to stay on campus.
“Anthony Davis runs the court in three steps,” Calipari said.
Davis is listed as a forward but has many of the ball-handling skills of a guard.
That’s because he was a guard.
Davis played guard growing up in Chicago, but then had a major growth spurt and burst onto the national scene a year ago.
“He grew eight inches in a year,” Chicago Mean Streets coach Jevon Mamon said last year. “With his guard skills that he possesses and because he is able to do that as a big and [with] his length defensively, he can do some great things because of his length.”
He ultimately chose Kentucky over Syracuse and Ohio State because he liked Calipari’s style of play and track record of producing pros.
Now he’s part of Calipari’s No. 1 ranked recruiting class, and he’s projected by DraftExpress.com as the No. 1 pick in the 2012 NBA Draft.
Davis is one of four Kentucky players projected to go in the first 18 picks.
“Skill-wise, he’s a work in progress,” said Jonathan Givony, founder of DraftExpress.com. “He needs to work on his shooting. He needs to work on his ball-handling. He needs to work on his post moves. But he’s the kind of guy that he’s going to get all of that down the road.
“And everybody says he’s an unbelievable kid, and that’s tangible. That’s huge.”
Adam Zagoria of Zags Blog covers the future stars of the NBA for SheridanHoops.com. His column appears every Saturday.