This week at Sacramento Kings training camp, rookie Darius Acuff Jr. was asked about getting extra shots up at the end of practice. He didn’t offer an elaborate explanation about what a hard worker he is or a long list of things he wants to accomplish in the league.
“I just got here. So, I ain’t really did nothing to show nobody yet,” Acuff Jr. said. “That’s kind of been my motto my whole life, just putting work in. If I see something that I didn’t do well today, I’m going to do it after [practice], just try to work on it.”
Not much to dissect there, and really that is the point. The rookie does not seem interested in getting into long explanations about who he is. He is not wanting to provide detailed stories about the work he puts in. Doug Christie is taking that on for him. He isn’t praising his own maturity. Instead, Domantas Sabonis is calling him “very poised.” And when Acuff does discuss himself, what he usually says ends up back at the same spot: what he still needs to do better.
Christie’s assessment of the rookie this week is meaningful: “He’s first one in, last one out. Works extremely hard, takes coaching, watches film; like the kid is a machine,” Christie said.
Staying late for some extra shots is a nice little training camp narrative, hearing it from the head coach is part of a pattern appearing around Acuff Jr.
For example, through three games of NBA Summer League, he was averaging 22 points, 4.3 assists, 2.7 rebounds, 1.3 steals and 1 block, but he wasn’t interested in discussing that. Instead, he said: “If I played better, I think we’d be winning by a lot more points.” He called for improvement from himself on both ends of the floor while saying his teammate Emanuel Sharp was the team’s best player through three games. He wasn’t trying to convince anyone how good he is; he shared where he needed to be better.
Go back a little further. At Arkansas, following a game in which he scored 31 points and had 6 assists, he assessed himself like this: “I gotta be more of a leader on defense.”
So, a trend of accountability, humility and a willingness to focus on improvement.
None of this guarantees he will be a star NBA player, or even a starting NBA point guard. Having humility doesn’t get rid of the mistakes rookies make, or make a shot fall, or improve defense. Being coachable doesn’t help learning the speed of the league or make how to run an offense at this level easier. There will be difficult stretches and head-scratching plays. But when you start connecting what is being said by him and others a consistent picture of the person behind the prospect starts to appear.
And quite possibly, the most interesting aspect of Acuff Jr. so far is that he isn’t trying to convince us of anything with words. He doesn’t need to tell us how poised or mature he is. He doesn’t seem particularly interested in selling us on himself at all.
He seems like a guy about one thing: playing ball, the best he can.
Without saying much at all, he’s showing us quite a bit.
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