Kentucky Sports Report - Marcus Lee: "I have a huge upside"

By: LARRY VAUGHT

Marcus Lee may appreciate the opportunity that lies ahead of him at Kentucky more than you might expect a player who was named a McDonald’s All-American in basketball and even had Division I offers in volleyball.

“I know how lucky and fortunate I am to be here,” Lee said.

He was considered a special education student in elementary school until it was diagnosed that he had dyslexia. Once that was determined, he found out he could learn like anyone else and didn’t have to wait until the last minute to come into school so no one would see him.

“It was extremely hard. Some days I would go home and was like, ‘Why can’t I figure this out?’ Or you are in class and don’t understand what is happening, so you just go into shutdown mode and you are like, ‘I don’t understand why everybody else understands but I don’t.’ It kind of taught me how to not shut down as much and just keep working hard and keep trying to figure it out,” Lee said of those early academic struggles.

But he also grew up in a home with his mom where there were not a lot of extras. He remembers even discouraging his mother from taking him out to eat so they could save money.

Lee figured out if he wanted to go to college, sports might be his best way. He was a 6-2 guard when he entered high school, so he also tried volleyball. And water polo. And bowling.

“I was up for anything,” he said. “I am not afraid to try new things. My whole life I wasn’t really guaranteed anything. I was never really the top-ranked guy until my senior year, so I was always pushing to get better.”

He did, too. He averaged 17.7 points, 19.5 rebounds and 6.7 blocked shots per game as a senior at Deer Valley High School in Antioch, Calif. He averaged 13.9 points, 13.1 rebounds, 9.1 blocks and 1.3 steals as a junior.

Kentucky coach John Calipari has big expectations for the thin shot-blocker.

“He and I talked the other day and he was in the office. I said, 'Look, you just keep being you.' I said, 'What do you do well?' He said 'I defend, I block shots, I run the court.' Do that. 'We'll figure out your offense, you just do that,' Calipari said. “So we're playing and doing drills one-on-one-on-one with the bigs and he's there, and … he gets scored on, didn't try to block it, and I go, 'Didn't you tell me you block shots?' Yeah. 'Well then block it.' Just standing there. 'Go block every shot. Go try to rebound every ball. I'm not asking you to be (fellow freshman) Dakari (Johnson). Guess what? Dakari can't be you. Just be you.’”

“So in time, he's going to be really good. In these practices, he wants to learn, he wants to get better. He's a guy that wants to be in this kind of environment. He'll be fine.”

Lee says practicing and working out daily with Johnson, Julius Randle, Willie Cauley-Stein and Alex Poythress has made them all better, one reason he knows he’s yet to reach his potential.

“I have heard I have a huge upside. They keep saying that because I have the will to learn. I just love learning things and adapting as quick as possible and as much as possible,” Lee said. “Coaches and parents have always told me to make sure even if you are talking to anybody, try to pay attention. They may know one thing more than you. Pick up and be one big sponge. That is one of the biggest upsides I have is the will to learn and get better as much as possible.”

Calipari says Lee is a natural shot-blocker. Maybe not like Anthony Davis or Nerlens Noel, but unique and effective in his own way.

“When you look at his body, he's got that long legs, long arms,” Calipari said. “We're doing one-on-one-on-one with the bigs where you play him, he'll play you, just keep rotating, and he's going against Dakari. Now, Dakari weighs 50 more pounds than him, at least 45. So you're going to bang with him? You've got to out-quick him,” Calipari said.

“So he's trying to bang. 'Stop. Why are you trying to do that? You'd lose that battle every time. Dakari's going to do it to you because he wins that battle every time, so you're going to use your quickness to not let him get the ball, try to steal from him. …

“You're going to use your quickness, try to block a shot that he's trying to put his body on you. And when you catch it, you're trying to run by him. He's trying to put a body on you. Don't let him.' So it's all, the coaching, them playing to their strengths, which is what we're trying to get them all to do.”

Lee believes he definitely will get more blocks than Cauley-Stein, Kentucky’s sophomore center.

“I think definitely me, because I go after everything. It is just my instinct. I will go after something and it will end up being goaltending,” he said. “I could really care less. Just my instinct in basketball or volleyball is to go up and get the block as quickly as possible. I only think about which way ... I don’t even know how I do it. It just happens.”

He knows that he’s a lot like Cauley-Stein off the court.

“Personality-wise, I think he has me by a little bit. He is a little bit more unique than I am, but it is pretty cool,” Lee said. “I will walk out, like, with some Chuck (Taylor) shoes on and I will see Willie has them on. I didn’t even know anybody else even wore “Chucks” any more. So it was pretty awesome, and seeing a lot of things I like that he does, a lot of weird things like I do, too. It was great.”

Lee’s father, Rony, played football at Portland State. Brothers Chris (Georgia Tech) and Bryan (Grand Canyon) both played college basketball. Another brother, Robert, builds airplanes for the U.S. Air Force. Chris designs shoes for Nike, and Bryan is a recruiter for Apple after working for Google.

The Kentucky freshman is closest to Bryan.

“If you have seen me and my brother together, you would think we were identical twins. Not like facial, but the way we do everything is almost exactly the same,” Lee said. “That is probably because I am always with him. When I was younger, I had a basketball hoop and I was only 2 or 3. I would dunk the ball and the rim broke. I would run and cry to him and he would be like, ‘What do you want me to do? You can put up the rim by yourself?’ And I would just sit there and start crying. Then it was like, ‘I’ll be there,’ and he would put it up for me.

“Every time he would go shoot or go to practice, I would always be with him. I would always go wherever he went. I just kind of got molded by him, so it is no wonder I am just like him.”

There was talk about Bryan moving to Lexington.

“No, he is not moving to Lexington. He is loving his job at Apple right now, so he is staying home (in California),” Lee said.

Actually, Marcus Lee says he has adjusted nicely to life in Kentucky except for one thing — the weather.

“I have adjusted pretty well. I actually love Kentucky’s change in weather. That is something I had to get used to,” he said. “When I first came here, someone told me that if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it will change. That made no sense to me.

“Then I went to class and it was really hot, like 90 degrees and so sunny. I came out after class and it was raining and I was like, ‘What just happened?’ It is so confusing. Then right when I walk all the way to the dorm, when we got inside it stopped raining and not when I was walking.

“I am quite excited to see the winters. We don’t have a lot of snow in California. It snowed twice in my lifetime in California, so seeing snow is going to be pretty cool.”