Cavs’ Preston happy for chance
Highly touted out of high school, he faced adversity last season.
Billy Preston LAS VEGAS — never thought he’d go undrafted the afternoon he plopped behind the wheel of his car to drive back from a Lawrence, Kansas, mall on Nov. 11.
He didn’t think he’d lose his one shot to play college basketball for the Kansas Jayhawks, or the potentially millions of dollars that go with being a first-round pick by an NBA team.
There was no thought that day to signing a “two-way” contract with the Cavs as his path to the NBA, a contract which mandates he spend half the season in the basketball minor league, the “G” League, at a salary of about $77,000. He’ll make about $350,000 for the days he spends with Cleveland.
For comparison’s sake, the Cavs’ No. 1 pick in June, Collin Sexton, signed a fouryear, $20.2 million deal.
That’s where Preston thought he was headed. Actually, he and his teammate thought they were getting back to campus for a 3 p.m. team meeting that November day when Preston’s car slid turning a corner on a slick, wet road and crashed into the curb.
No one was hurt in the crash, so that’s not why Preston’s NBA trip took a detour. Rather, after reporting the accident to Kansas’ athletic compliance department, questions were raised about the financing of the car — or, how or from who Preston got the vehicle.
Preston never played for Kansas because of an NCAA investigation into the car. He fled to Bosnia to play professionally there, but hurt his shoulder lifting weights and came home after just three games.
No team drafted Preston on June 22, even though he worked out for 15 teams before the draft. The Cavs brought the 6-10 forward on for Summer League, and inked him to his two-way contract before he played his first summer game Friday.
So, given all of that, Preston is more than OK with his lot in life as a player under contract with Cleveland.
“I wouldn’t take back or change anything that happened now, good and bad,” Preston said. “I learned from everything. And I’m here today, and that’s all that matters.”
Preston, 20, was a McDonald’s All-American coming out of prestigious Oak Hill Academy in the spring of 2017. He said he always intended to leave college after one season for the NBA draft, and his college coach, Kansas’ Bill Self, has said Preston has first-round talent.
He’s played in two games for the Cavs in Vegas and is averaging 10.4 points and 4.0 rebounds — he missed the middle of Cleveland’s three games with a quad bruise.
The Cavs didn’t have a second-round pick in this year’s draft. They knew Preston’s upside and saw the value in signing him to a “two-way” contract; they can keep him and groom him for pennies on the dollar. Preston also attended four high schools before heading to Kansas, which of course didn’t go as planned, and then he was in Bosnia for a matter of weeks before heading home to prepare for the draft.
So Cleveland’s front office believes some stability would do wonders for Preston.
The NCAA’s investigation into Preston’s car was never concluded because he left school to play in Europe. But Kansas is ensnared in the FBI’s investigation into rampant corruption in major college basketball, and Preston was apparently caught up in that. A sweeping federal indictment from April says Adidas reps conspired to funnel $90,000 to Preston’s mother, according to a report from Yahoo! Sports.
In an interview with The Plain Dealer Tuesday, Preston denied wrongdoing and said he left Kansas to play overseas because “I was under investigation for too long, for four to five weeks.
“They wouldn’t let me know if I could play or not,” Preston said. “I was sitting out during the regular season ... waiting on an answer if I could play, and I never got one. At that point I just wanted to hoop somewhere. I got the chance to go overseas and I took it.”
Preston said the car belonged to his mother and was registered under his grandmother’s name. The federal corruption investigation into major college basketball, agents, and shoe companies is well known — painting a picture of how programs conspire with agents and companies to incentivize athletes to attend certain schools through payments to the players or their families.