Payne heading to Thunder at No. 14
NEW YORK — The selfie stick was raised by his mother, Leshawn Payne, even before the words spilled out of Commissioner Adam Silver’s mouth. Cameron Payne, the Memphis native and former Murray State star, had seen his name surface on Twitter. He knew his time had arrived.
Payne, who played for Lausanne Collegiate School, was selected Thursday night by the Oklahoma City Thunder with the 14th pick in the 2015 NBA draft.
“I really appreciate the Thunder giving me an opportunity to play for those guys this season,” Payne said. “I’m just shocked, man. I’m excited, man. I’m ready to get on the court.”
Slight of frame but wide in confidence, Payne was overlooked by high-major schools across the country. Left on the outside of the top-100 recruiting rankings, he committed to Murray State, the first school to recruit him, and blossomed into a star after starting from day one. Now, he will share a court with superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook.
Payne oozes the kind of cerebralism so often described as basketball IQ and labeled an innate skill. He is a score-first point guard, a player who never averaged less than 17.4 points per game in his two collegiate seasons. But he also described his ability to set up teammates as “perfect.”
A gregarious speaker, Payne makes no apologies for his desire to score. Run-and-gun basketball, he says, is Cam Payne basketball, and the percolating confidence of a ragsto-riches star defines him.
Scouts and front office members across the country became enamored with a player whose feel for the game appeared genetic; whose jump shot, while perhaps in need of a little work mechanically, resulted in 2.5 3-pointers per game last season; whose beautiful floaters around the basket, according to one front office member in the Eastern Conference, will be an X-factor that separates Payne from other guards.
Aiding Payne’s rapid ascent — he rarely appeared on any mock drafts until Murray State reeled off 25 consecutive wins during his sophomore season — is the recent proliferation of extremely talented guards from mid-major schools. The success of Stephen Curry (Davidson, league’s reigning Most Valuable Player), Damian Lillard (Weber State, two-time All-Star), and Elfrid Payton (Louisiana -Lafayette, All-Rookie first team) has emboldened front offices when it comes to unearthing potential diamonds in the rough.
“It was kind of funny when I looked at the green room list,” Payne said. “You had Murray State, the lone mid-major. I was blessed that I was put in that position.”
But drafting Payne, who is actually a halfinch shorter than his listed height of 6-2, is far from a concern-free selection. At 183 pounds, Payne’s build is remarkably similar to that of Memphis point guard Mike Conley, a player whose body has been bludgeoned each and every season in the NBA. There are concerns, according to the same Eastern Conference front office member, about Payne’s durability, and the fractured right ring finger suffered in a pre-draft workout with the Nuggets did nothing to quell those worries. (While in New York earlier this week, Payne wore a cast to protect the injured finger on his non-shooting hand.)
“The little body, the little frame, the little boy look just kind of didn’t pass the eye test with a lot of people,” said Leshawn Payne earlier this week.
And there will still be those who use Payne’s college, Murray State of the Ohio Valley Conference, as a detractor. That he excelled against subpar competition — Payne finished with the thirdhighest offensive rating in college basketball last season, according to KenPom, against a schedule that was the 234th-toughest — presents a curious exercise in evaluation.
That is why, even as he entered the interview room sporting a Thunder cap, the chip on his shoulder remained.
“I was thinking I was going to go earlier, man,” Payne said, “but God put me in the perfect fit.”