National Basketball Association

Kentucky coach John Calipari beams watching former Wildcat Devin Booker star in the NBA Finals

Updated Jul. 29, 2021 9:39 p.m. ET

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By Melissa Rohlin
FOX Sports NBA Writer

Every morning, John Calipari gets a report delivered to his desk about his former players now in the NBA.

Calipari, the longtime men's basketball coach at the University of Kentucky, will spend about five minutes scrolling through the list, seeing if any of the 30 guys did something special the previous night.

He'll then shoot those players text messages.

This season, he has been blowing up Devin Booker's phone nonstop. Calipari has watched Booker transform from a skinny 17-year-old kid with a chip on his shoulder into a bona fide NBA superstar who has already scored the most points ever by a player in his first postseason. 

In the process, Booker has led the Phoenix Suns to their first NBA Finals appearance in 28 years. The Suns and Milwaukee Bucks are tied 2-2 with Game 5 set for Saturday.

Booker's lone season at Kentucky, in 2014-15, might seem unremarkable from glancing at his stats. He never started a game and averaged only 10 points, quite surprising for someone who averaged 25.6 PPG for the Suns this season while starting every game in which he played.

But the box scores tell only part of the story.

"I learned a lot from Coach Calipari," Booker said. "Just how to be a pro."

Booker wasn't a late bloomer who discovered his explosive first step and silky shot after the Suns selected him with the No. 13 pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. He was simply on one of the most stacked teams in college history, one that went 38-0 before falling to Wisconsin in the Final Four.

During his days as a Wildcat, Booker learned how to make sacrifices and work hard — skills that have paid off hugely.

"The kid accepted that everyone here's got to eat, so tell me how we make this work," Calipari told FOX Sports. "The competitiveness in practice brought out that lion for him. I'm telling you: There were close to fights in practice."

That Kentucky team wasn't supposed to be so star-studded. Following the 2013-14 season, Calipari didn't expect Andrew and Aaron Harrison, Dakari Johnson, Alex Poythress and Willie Cauley-Stein to all return instead of at least a few declaring for the NBA Draft. 

Kentucky also added four McDonald's All American freshmen to the roster, including Booker and Karl-Anthony Towns, the eventual No. 1 pick in the 2015 draft.

All of a sudden, the coach was in a bit of a quandary.

"We've got 10 legitimate players that all were going to deserve to play," Calipari said. "You hear what I'm saying? So now it became, what do we do here?"

The abundance of talent meant that everyone would get less playing time. It meant Booker wouldn't play 30 minutes each night, average eye-popping numbers or star in the pick-and-roll.

But instead of complaining, he poured himself into his craft. He was always in the gym, demonstrating a chippiness that belied his appearance.

"When you first saw him, he was baby-faced and skinny, but with big feet," Calipari said. "You looked at him, and you're like, 'Wait a minute.' Then you watched him play, and then you said, 'This kid has got an edge to him, and he's skilled.'"

With so many future NBA players, the Wildcats' practices quickly became more of a spectacle than their games. Sometimes there would be 10 scouts in attendance, watching the players battle one another for precious playing time.

The scouts were evaluating talent, but they were also paying attention to the intangibles. They wanted to see who would arrive at practice first and who would be the last to leave. They wanted to know who was willing to put in extra work and who had stamina in the final five minutes.

Booker immediately made an impression.

"He's going to be your best player, and by far I think he's your best scorer," Calipari recalled multiple scouts telling him.

Booker was a grinder, just like his father, Melvin Booker, who had brief stints in the NBA with the Houston Rockets, Denver Nuggets and Golden State Warriors.

When Calipari was recruiting Devin, Melvin had one concern. He wanted to make sure that if his son stayed at Kentucky for a few years, he wouldn't be recruited over, meaning his playing time wouldn't be usurped by incoming freshmen.

After coaching Booker for just one month, Calipari called Melvin to assuage his fears.

"I said, 'Hey, Book, don't worry about him being here three years,'" Calipari recalled. "'That ain't happening.'"

From day one, Devin Booker refused to back down. If someone talked trash to him, he dished it right back.

There's an intimidation factor that comes with playing for Kentucky, which has made 17 Final Fours and won eight NCAA national championships. But Calipari saw it quickly fade for Booker, replaced by a belief that he was the best guard on the team.

"Everybody that comes here has anxiety that they're not good enough because the aura of Kentucky is bigger than it really is here," Calipari said. "So they're not sure they can really play here, like, this may be better than me. But it isn't. When he figured out — 'I'm as good as anybody' — then it was over. It was done. He could get a bucket whenever he wanted to."

That didn't mean he did. Booker never scored 20 points in a game at Kentucky. But everyone on that 2014-15 team gave up something, including Towns, who averaged only 21 minutes and attempted just eight 3-pointers all season.

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"We all had to buy in," Booker said. "We all had to sacrifice and just [understand] our role."

Booker says he ran only "like four pick-and-rolls" at Kentucky. He vividly remembers how Calipari "would lose his mind" if Towns attempted a 3-pointer. Six years later, the 6-11 center is a 39.4% career shooter from that distance in the NBA.

But those sacrifices didn't negatively impact the players' progress.

Six players from Kentucky were drafted into the NBA in 2015, including Towns (No. 1), Cauley-Stein (No. 6), Trey Lyles (No. 12), Booker (No. 13), Andrew Harrison (No. 44) and Johnson (No. 48).

"None of them got hurt, they all benefitted, and we almost won every single game," said Calipari, who added that it was his next few teams that took a hit. "We did something unique, and it killed us in recruiting for three years. ‘You really want to go there and play 20 minutes a game?’ I mean, it killed us in recruiting."

Calipari knows it would've been easier for Booker to go to another school, where he could've started and gotten a huge amount of playing time. But Booker's experience with the Wildcats brought out two important sides in him: a selflessness and a viciousness.

"They learn how to share here, and they learn how to fight," Calipari said of his players. "You have to fight for what you want. It isn't going to be given. Someone else wants what you want."

Booker has used that approach with the Suns.

Phoenix coach Monty Williams remembers being taken aback by Booker's maturity when they went out to dinner on his second day on the job in 2019. "He looked me right in the eyes, and he said, 'Coach, whatever you need me to do, I'll do it,'" Williams said.

But Booker also has a lot of dog in him.

When the Suns acquired Chris Paul in November, he and Booker went at each other so hard during their first practice that they nearly came to blows. "It was like two steps away from a fight," Williams recalled.

That combination of being willing to please and willing to scrap has been invaluable for Booker, who has soared on the biggest of stages in the playoffs. He has averaged 27.1 points in the postseason, and has exploded for three 40-point performances, including one with Calipari in the crowd.  

In Game 4 of the Finals, in front of his college coach — who flew to Milwaukee on Wednesday and left Thursday for a recruiting trip — Booker did all of the things he wasn't able to do at Kentucky. He took 28 shots. He dominated in the pick-and-roll. He was the guy, finishing with a spectacular, 42-point performance, tying a Suns Finals record.

Despite Phoenix's 109-103 loss, Calipari loved witnessing firsthand who Booker has become.

"I couldn't be more proud," he said. "I love the fact that people know now that he sacrificed. And I Iove the fact that people say, 'Why would he?' It shows his character."

Booker is incredibly grateful for his time with Calipari, but sometimes he can't help but tease him.

Back in 2018, on what would've been his senior night at Kentucky, Booker, who was already a three-year starter for the Suns, shot his former coach a text.

"Would you have started me tonight?" Booker wrote.

Calipari had a good laugh.

Since arriving at Kentucky in 2009, Calipari has seen 41 Wildcats selected in the NBA Draft, more than any other school can claim, including 31 first-round selections and three No. 1 picks.  

He knows exactly why he has been able to have that kind of success.

"You've got guys like Devin, who say, ‘We trust you,’" he said. 

Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She has previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter @melissarohlin.

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Melissa Rohlin