This story originally published on June 12 when Caleb Swanigan worked out with the Portland Trail Blazers. The Blazers selected Swanigan with the No. 26 pick in the 2017 NBA draft.

TUALATIN-- Caleb Swanigan has already overcome more than most NBA draft hopefuls.

He spent the early part of his childhood moving in an out of low-income housing and homeless shelters as his father dealt with drug addiction and his mother struggled to raise him and his five siblings.

"It's just prepared me through the adversity ...," Swanigan said on Monday morning after completing a workout with the Portland Trail Blazers at the team's practice facility in Tualatin. "This isn't really as much stress as real life could be. So, it makes basketball a lot easier."

Swanigan, a 6-foot-9, 246-pound big man from Purdue, has undergone a massive change both physically and mentally over the past seven years, transforming from an overweight teen struggling through rough circumstances to a talented NBA prospect. The adversity he experienced early in life has helped shape him as a 20-year-old hoping to make the leap to the NBA.

"...Because the way I was brought up you gotta mature quickly in some situations," he said. "Now it's an advantage where you come into something like this where everyone has to mature. Or, if you don't mature, you'll be out the league pretty quick."

Swanigan's life and commitment to basketball changed just before he started eighth grade. At that point he was 6-foot-2 and weighed nearly 400-pounds, according to ESPN.com. He was a gifted athlete but he was too big to truly showcase any of his gifts.

Before Swanigan started the eighth grade, he was adopted by Roosevelt Barnes and moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana. Barnes provided stability and direction for Swanigan, who had attended 14 different schools from kindergarten through seventh grade while his family moved from Indianapolis to the Salt Lake City area to Houston. Once he settled with Barnes in Fort Wayne, Swanigan finally had the structure he needed to commit himself to basketball.

He shed weight, grew to nearly 6-foot-9 and blossomed into one of the best high school basketball prospects in the country. As a high school senior in 2015, he won Indiana's "Mr. Basketball" award, earned a spot in the McDonald's All-American game and played in the Nike Hoop Summit, a prospect showcase held annually in Portland.

Swanigan tested the NBA waters after his freshman season at Purdue before electing to go back for his sophomore year. He averaged 18.5 points, 12.5 rebounds, 3.0 assists as a sophomore while shooting 52.7 percent from the floor and 44.7 percent from beyond the three-point line. He posted four 20-point, 20-rebound games during his sophomore season and was named a consensus All-American and the Big Ten Player of the Year. He became first collegiate player since Tim Duncan in 1996-97 to average at least 18.5 points, 12.5 rebounds and three assists for an entire season and answered nearly every question NBA scouts had for him after his freshman season.

"Get my body better, shoot better, just be an all-around better player," Swanigan said of his improvement as sophomore. "Rebound the ball more frequently, be a main guy on the team, show I can pass out of the post and do all those things. I went back to school and did those."

Swanigan projects as a center in the NBA and his 7-3 wingspan should help him guard taller players in the post despite measuring slightly under 6-9 at the NBA combine in May. He has worked out for 10 NBA teams with four more workouts scheduled ahead of draft night on June 22.

His visit to Portland served as a way to measure his growth as a person and basketball player. He first visited the city shortly after moving in with Barnes to play in an AAU tournament with the Indy Spiece Heat. Two years later, he was back in Portland when he was selected to play with USA Basketball in the 2015 Nike Hoop Summit. His third trip came Monday in a predraft workout with five other prospects.

"It just seems like I've been in Portland every two years," Swanigan said. "It's like a checkpoint in life. I'm in a better place (now). Hopefully next time I come back to Portland I'm in a better place."

-- Mike Richman

mrichman@oregonian.com

@mikegrich