Willie Cauley-Stein is entering his fourth season with the Sacramento Kings with tons to prove. Since the current front office drafted him 6th overall back in the 2015 NBA Draft, Cauley-Stein has pretty much exemplified the modern era Kings—tantalizing potential with serious inconsistency. But now, 10 months away from restricted free agency, Cauley-Stein says he’s “locked in,” and wants to be a far more consistent player than ever before.

Cauley-Stein appeared on the Grant Napear Show with Doug Christie (the title host was off for the day), and had some interesting thoughts about his offseason training, his development, and his leadership role going forward. When asked what he expected from himself this season, the first thing Cauley-Stein said was “consistency.”

On how his offseason was going (emphasis mine):

When asked how he sees “his voice coming out in the locker room this year”:

On-court actions will always speak louder than offseason words, but these are really self-aware statements from the 25 year old big. Consistent effort—especially on the glass and on defense—is all Kings fans have been asking from Cauley-Stein since he joined the team. Hopefully this is what he means when he says consistency, rather than a continued attempt to be a scorer comparable to Kristaps Porzingis. That said, Cauley-Stein’s stats from last season do back up his declared mid-season effort boost;

Willie would hardly be the first NBA player to “figure it out” as he gets older. And as the second oldest of the Kings young core (aside from Bogdan Bogdanovic), a leadership role is certainly there for Willie to snag. It might be a little late for the Kings—who seem to be preparing their rookie big Duke duo of Marvin Bagley III and Harry Giles to be their bigs of the future, over their past bigs-of-the-future Kentucky duo—but even if Cauley-Stein’s career prime years come with a new team in the future, any unlocked potential will help the Kings this year, AND next summer when Willie is a restricted free agent. It’s going to be interesting to see how the coaching staff handles the playing time between the rookies, a motivated Willie, and a beefed up Skal Labissiere.

Finally, when Cauley-Stein was asked what he thought a successful season would be, he avoided the playoffs for a much more real answer.

A “consistent” season from Cauley-Stein and a newly-forged team identity would go a long way towards improving this franchise going forward.