But don't tell him that. He believes his shot is golden, after all.

"The shot's gold," Cauley-Stein told reporters. "A lot of people don't know it, but they're going to find out. I'm capable of shooting the ball."

The scouting reports continue to label Cauley-Stein as a tremendous defender with limited offensive ability – he averaged 8.9 points, 6.4 rebounds, 1.7 blocks, 1 assist and 1.2 steals for Kentucky last season. Cauley-Stein says the reputation has less to do with his scoring ability and more about opportunity. He described his role at Kentucky as focusing on defense with little need for his offense on teams stacked with NBA prospects. Despite the lack of usage on offense, he said he was in the gym at midnight getting "600 jumpers up a night."

"I'm the one putting the hours and hours of work in and everybody else that is writing about you, or you know, talking 'you can't do this.' Well, come watch me in the gym for an hour and tell me I can't do something," Cauley-Stein said with the same tone in his rebuttal you would expect to hear from Cousins.

"In college now, offense has not become a democracy – it's dictated by the talent at hand, and I think the two or three years he's been there [Kentucky], he's had a couple pretty good players ahead of him," Karl said.

"Much better than I thought," Karl said of Cauley-Stein's offense. "The college game and the pro game are totally different offensively in my mind, especially for big guys. And I think the NBA game will give Willie a lot better opportunities than he probably gets in college. The lane is always crowded in college. In pro ball, you can run stuff that keeps the lane fairly open … From what I see on video is Willie has some trouble with crowds and I think if you give him space he'll have much better efficiency."

But it is his defense that has the lottery teams interested in Cauley-Stein and what is intriguing about placing him next to Cousins in the Kings front court to help protect the basket. (A recent rumor indicates Cousins wants the Kings to draft his fellow Kentucky alum.) Should Boogie and Trill be paired (they also each wore the No. 15 for Kentucky), Karl has an idea of how he would use them together.

"DeMarcus is so good at the top and he [Cauley-Stein] could be underneath and his skills of offensive rebounding and running the court and getting up the court before the defense sets. And then DeMarcus could be a trail and run I call the ‘secondary quarterback' is usually the second big trailing the play," Karl said. "And all that could be very efficient and very effective."

Cauley-Stein said his and Cousins' style of play complement each other.

"He can do a little bit of everything. He's more of a power guy, I'm more of a finesse, get out and run and do a lot of stuff using my speed and quickness," Cauley-Stein said. "He's more of a guy that's going to bang with you, you know, get mean and do a lot of stuff like that … So we kind of just complement each other."

"I don't compare myself to nobody. I think I bring a unique set of skills that are my skills," Cauley-Stein said. "I don't compare, I don't watch Tyson Chandler or DeAndre Jordan, I just do what I do and that's the way I look at it."

Other Notes