Determined Shamet’s NBA star is rising
PHILADELPHIA >> The last audition before his life would change had just finished, so there was nothing more for Landry Shamet to show on a basketball court. In two days, he would be in the NBA Draft. There was nothing else for him to prove.
That’s when he was brought into Brett Brown’s office. That’s when he could just be himself. That’s when he could exhale. And that’s when the two of them knew it all could work.
“The 19th of June,” Shamet was saying Friday night, the date stamped in his basketball conscience. “My workout was over. He pulled me in. And we just talked for like 30 minutes. It wasn’t even about basketball that much. It was just good, genuine conversation. That was the biggest thing.
“So when I left for New York and the draft, that kind of stayed in my head, that you want a relationship like that. You want to be around good people. That’s the whole vibe I got here. And that’s why I kept thinking about Philadelphia.”
The draft can be volatile, with plans scuttled early, late, and even in between. That’s what happened with the Sixers last June, when they drafted Mikal Bridges in the lottery, traded him before the night was out, landed Zhaire Smith at No. 16 and promised to use a draft
choice acquired in the transaction as currency for a loudly announced star search. And it was later, at No. 26, in that swirl, that the Sixers did what Shamet had hoped. They made the 6-5, 190-pound shooting guard the 26th overall pick. On a night when they would have their fans convinced that LeBron James or Kawhi Leonard could come their way, the Landry acquisition was, at best, muffled. Even Brown, who still characterizes that conversation in Camden as vital to the decision to draft him in the first round, wasn’t really sure what the Wichita State product could provide.
“I thought he was going to be in the G-League playing G-League basketball,” Brown will admit, five months later. “Lots of rookies do go to the GLeague and play back and forth. I thought he would come up to our team from time to time and get on a court. But that’s what I guessed.
“Not many young players are able to do what he’s done. But he just grabbed something and he didn’t let it go. It’s just a classic case of opportunity.”
By training camp, and then well beyond, circumstances would change. Jerryd Bayless, whose experience as a perimeter shooter may have helped, sprained his left knee and never recovered. Wilson Chandler, a forward expected to provide shooting from the perimeter, could never really shake a hamstring injury. Mike Muscala, another shooter, injured his ankle, then had his nose broken. Markelle Fultz and Ben Simmons, two players taken 25 slots sooner than him in the previous two drafts, either would not or could not shoot. And there was Shamet, professionally prepared, willing to engage, not intimidated by the NBA or its challenges.
“For the most part, I think I am that way,” Shamet was saying Friday, before a game against the Charlotte Hornets. “The opportunity was presented to me and I think I attacked it with the right mindset. I am still not comfortable. I am still learning and have a ton of room to improve through watching film and talking with coaches and stuff. So there is still a lot more for me to do in my eyes. That’s how I’m looking at it.
“It’s 11 games into my rookie year, so I won’t let myself get too comfortable. But I am happy so far with the start.”
Shamet averaged 7.8 points and shot 39.6 percent from three-point range as the Sixers moved to a 7-5 start. In each of his two games before Friday, at Brooklyn and Indiana, he had 12 points and one turnover. He’d been on a four-game double-figurescoring streak. His scoring average was in the top 12 among NBA rookies. His 53 attempted three pointers were third-highest among first-year players, his 21 successful distance shots second.
Suddenly, he’d become a nightly scouting-board focus.
“I think they are trying to play him like building another J.J. Redick out there, a guy that’s coming off screens,” said Charlotte coach James Borrego. “He is a tough cover. He moves without the ball very well. He’s a three-point shooter. He can ‘play-make’ some. So he’s got our attention for sure. He is in the scouting report. He got loose a few times on us the last game. So we have to be locked into him just like we are to J.J. Redick.”
That’s remarkable praise so early. But it is blossoming to the point where a spot in the AllStar Weekend’s Rising Stars Challenge, for the better rookies and second-year NBA players, is a realistic possibility for Shamet.
“I don’t share many of my goals,” the rookie said. “I like to keep them internalized. But that was one that I’ve been kind of shooting for I guess, with no sort of selfish drives behind it. I just feel like I am good enough to be in that.
“If I can keep doing what I am doing, contributing and just playing my role here, the rest will take care of itself.”
There was a reason Brown, who was the Sixers’ acting general manager at the time, thumbsupped Shamet when he was available at No. 26. He knew he could shoot. But he saw something deeper, much deeper, than 23 feet.
“He saw the game in an intellectual way,” Brown said, remembering that long-ago conversation. “That side of it, as much as what he did on the basketball court, excited me as much as anything.
“And he has not disappointed.”
It was a conversation that helped change Landry Shamet’s life.
Quietly, it changed the Sixers, too. To contact Jack McCaffery, email him at jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @ JackMcCaffery