Kyle Tucker

@KyleTucker_CJ

CHICAGO – The Curious Case of Skal Labissiere, which tortured Kentucky fans and tormented coach John Calipari all season, is now the NBA’s riddle to solve. Good luck, NBA. The enigma and all its complexities were on full display in a mostly empty gym Wednesday night in the Windy City.

There he was, both the guy who averaged just 6.6 points and 3.1 rebounds during a disappointing freshman season with the Wildcats and the almost-7-footer who was suddenly tantalizing draft gurus again with smooth moves and swished jump shots. No NBA personnel were present for his workout, but several national media who specialize in draft projections were invited.

That had its intended effect: When Labissiere began putting on a clinic, Twitter erupted with praise.

“Not many 7-footers with footwork, balance and a stroke like this,” wrote Mike Schmitz, a video scout for DraftExpress.com and The Vertical, accompanying a clip of Labissiere dribbling and draining jumpers against no defense.

“I do think it’s time to move Skal back into the top-five discussion,” said Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders.

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ESPN draft analyst Chad Ford was there, too, and he was impressed – but still skeptical. He doesn’t want to be fooled again. Ford fell for this same combination of size and skill on the summer circuit last year and projected at the time, like most of his peers, that Labissiere would be in the mix as the No. 1 pick in the 2016 draft.

Now he has him rated the 15th-best prospect, based almost entirely on potential, and he’s not ready to go crazy. Yet.

“He played a lot better than he played at Kentucky,” Ford said, noting that the entire Wednesday night workout was a one-on-none situation. Labissiere was getting buckets against air. “He shot it really well, including from NBA 3. He really has a silky stroke and he’s coordinated and he looks good in that setting. But it wasn’t as good as I saw it hyped afterward. I don’t understand that at all.

“You could see again why we liked him, but it wasn’t a great workout. He didn’t go particularly hard, got tired at the end. And that jump shot, by the way, quit falling as he got tired.”

Yeah, but …

As Ford notes, many believe this year’s draft talent drops off steeply after the top seven or eight players, and from that point on, almost every pick is a gamble. As those go, few options will have as big a potential payoff as Labissiere, whose handful of college highlights – like 18 points, nine rebounds and six blocks against LSU and possible top pick Ben Simmons in the regular-season finale – were jarring reminders of what he might someday be.

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“Skal has the skillset to be in that league, no question. Shooting is at a premium. He’s a 7-footer who can shoot. Now, physically he just has to catch up,” Calipari said. Labissiere weighed in at just 215.8 pounds Thursday at the NBA combine. “If he had stayed in school another year or two, he would have been the No. 1 pick, because he’d have figured it out, he’d have blocked shots, he’d have run better, he’d have been more physical.”

Calipari said the stay-or-go conversation with Labissiere was brief – “He got two agents to make sure” – because the still-unproven player believed he was ready nevertheless to make the leap. Because of all that potential, and his preparation.

Sure, making it in the NBA will be tough, Labissiere said. But tougher than what he’s already been through?

“Kentucky’s just a different place, and I feel like it prepared me for this next step,” Labissiere said Thursday at the combine. “What I’ve been through, I feel like I’m ready mentally. Physically, I’m still working on my body. The skillset, I have it.

“I feel like everything I’ve been through and everything I’m going through now is preparing me for something greater than I can imagine. I really think I’ll have a great career in the NBA.”

He said NBA teams have asked him about his background – including his survival of a deadly earthquake back home in Haiti in 2010 – and some have questioned why he wasn’t more productive in college. He’s comfortable talking about the near-death experience but stumped about his stats: “I don’t know how to answer that.”

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One of the knocks against him is a lack of toughness, though, and he has a great response for that one.

“I really think I’m one of the toughest kids in the draft,” Labissiere said. “Coming from Haiti and the earthquake and everything, I really don’t think a lot of people bounce back from that, keep a level head like I did. I stayed grounded this whole year (at Kentucky), even when things were not going my way. I never really talked back to Coach. So I really think I’m one of the toughest kids in the draft.”

He is perhaps the toughest to evaluate. If a team takes him in the lottery, it will do so both for fear of regret in the event that he blossoms and with enormous worry that he’ll become a bust instead. To watch him shoot in an empty gym is to see a seductor in sneakers.

“He’s so skilled,” said point guard Tyler Ulis, Labissiere’s former UK teammate who is trying to prove himself at the combine, too. “You’ll see him work out and he hits 50 hook shots, left and right, in a row. Then steps out and hits 25 jumpers in a row. So he has the skills to do it.”

But what about the rest? Ford remains leery of what he saw Wednesday night, because there’s a larger body of work now that suggest it is still merely fool’s gold. And yet.

“I’m not sure that’s going to be enough to convince NBA teams, but it will make him more intriguing for sure,” Ford said. “If I was his agent, those are the only kind of workouts I would let him in. Because if he gets into physical workouts, those guys are fighting for their lives and that’s not the type of physicality he wants to see.

“But I probably had 10 (general managers) pull me aside today wanting more info about (Wednesday) night, because I think they’re a lot like me: I want to see him about 10 more times.”

Kyle Tucker can be reached at (502) 582-4361. Email him atktucker@courier-journal.com.