How James Wiseman went from raw project to potential No. 1 NBA Draft pick

Jason Munz | Memphis Commercial Appeal

James Wiseman wasn’t always the towering, hulking presence he is now.

At 7-foot-1 and 245 pounds, and already one of the most significant players ever to be part of a Memphis basketball roster, the freshman has once-in-a-generation potential. Larry Finch had it. Keith Lee had it. So, too, did Penny Hardaway – who happens to be Wiseman’s coach again after coaching him at East High during the 2017-18 season.

Wiseman – also known as “Big Ticket” – has a chance to be mentioned in the same breath as the legends who preceded him when he makes his debut for the Tigers. That hasn’t happened yet because his injured right ankle kept him out of both of the team’s home exhibition games. And a bum shoulder in August meant he stayed on the bench for all four exhibition games in the Bahamas.

But Wiseman will get to show off what made him one of the highest profile signings in Tigers history on Tuesday. On Monday, Hardaway told reporters Wiseman is healthy enough to take the floor for the team's season opener at 7 p.m. against South Carolina State at FedExForum. Wiseman's debut will signal yet another turning point in a career that already has featured plenty.

Support Local Journalism: Benefits of a Commercial Appeal subscription

After all, he wasn’t always the sky-scraping headliner he has become. Matter of fact, Wiseman was a shy, soft-spoken, spindly sort simply trying to make good on the potential his physical stature afforded him.

“He came to us, I think, as a ninth-grader,” said Ricky Bowers, who was Wiseman's coach as a freshman and sophomore at Ensworth in Nashville. “That’s when I met him. He wasn’t 6-9, or whatever he is. How tall is he now?”

Seven feet, 1 inch.

“Oh, dear,” Bowers said with barely a hint of surprise. “You could look at him and tell that he was going to be tall. But how tall was in question.”

James Wiseman, the early years

Wiseman’s move to Ensworth came after attending Bellshire Elementary and Madison Middle School. That’s around the time he met Devan and Desmond Cambridge. Devan, the younger of the two and the same age as Wiseman, met the budding star when the two were in the fifth grade. In sixth grade, they became teammates for one year on In Play Elite, a Nashville AAU middle school team.

Devan, now a freshman guard at Auburn, said Wiseman was raw back then.

“I don’t know how tall he was, but he was way taller than everybody,” said Devan, who knew him as “Big James” at the time. “He wasn’t terrible. I was guarding him back then, and I could handle it by myself. He was like 6-5 at the time. Somewhere around there. I could contest his shot and block it. Now, it’s not a question.

“He would dominate me in the post.”

The turning point

Wiseman remembers when basketball didn’t come to him as easy as it does now. He also remembers when the tide began to turn.

“I turned a corner in eighth grade,” he said. “When I finally knew my passion for the game. And that I actually wanted to take this far, as far as I can. That’s when I fell in love with the game of basketball.”

That’s also around the time he made the move to Ensworth, where he became teammates with Desmond, who was a senior. In addition to his slight frame, Desmond said, Wiseman had not yet developed the right mind-set that would help maximize his potential.

“His freshman year, he was real soft. He was real tall and he had a lot of hype around him, so I knew he would be real good,” said Desmond, who is a junior guard at Nevada. “But he was soft, physicality-wise. He had a good skill-set. He just didn’t have what I call a ‘dog’ in him. Like, he couldn’t dominate everybody.”

Wiseman’s first season at Ensworth was 2015-16. He helped the Tigers to a 23-6 record, and they reached the Division II-AA state championship game. But, led by Darius Garland’s 18 points, Brentwood Academy shelled Ensworth 82-49.

“He didn’t play real well, so there was a lot of doubts and negativity around him after that,” Desmond said. “I think that fueled him to really push himself that next summer.”

Wiseman's spirituality

While he admits he is still motivated by his lackluster showing in that game, the deeply spiritual Wiseman – whose Twitter timeline predominantly consists of tweets from televangelist Joel Osteen – said the moment he identifies as the one that helped him the most has nothing to do with basketball.

“The one watershed moment was really just putting 100% faith in God that I was going to get the job done and that I just wanted to work hard as much as possible,” he said, noting he reads the Bible every day and hopes to meet Osteen face to face sometime. “Just having that faith is really a key aspect to everything in life. Once I got that faith and that confidence, that’s when it just took off.”

Take off, he did. After helping Ensworth reach the state tournament semifinals in 2017, he won a championship at East in 2018 and got the Mustangs back to the title game less than eight months ago.

The No. 1 recruit in the country, Wiseman signed with Memphis, helping the Tigers put together the top recruiting class in the nation. Some media outlets already are projecting Wiseman as the first overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft.

“Wiseman is a great talent and a super young man,” ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas said last week. “I had a chance to speak to him when I was down in Memphis and I was blown away by the caliber of person he is. But he’ll be a top-five pick, conservatively. He’s super-skilled, and at his size, he can do just about everything out there.”

Want to stay informed on the latest Memphis basketball news? A Commercial Appeal subscription gets you unlimited access to the best inside information and updates on the Tigers, plus newsletters and the ability to tap into sports news from throughout the USA TODAY Network's 109 local sites.

Reach sports writer Jason Munz at jason.munz@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @munzly.