CHICAGO — In between two seasons of bulldozing opponents for the Arizona Wildcats, Rawle Alkins stopped by the NBA combine last spring and dropped 18 points in his first game.
But Thursday, while making a return to the NBA’s premier predraft event, the rugged New Yorker slowed down a bit.
Figuratively, at least.
During interviews with NBA teams, Alkins said he was asked if he would stay or go when reaching a yellow light.
Alkins’ game says he probably goes. But that isn’t what he said.
“It depends how close you are,” Alkins said, smiling.
During a 15-minute media session after his first game this year — when he had four points and five rebounds while making 1 of 8 shots — Alkins also played it carefully.
Among other things, Alkins said he believed he would prove to NBA scouts he is a high-motor, two-way player who can defend, wasn’t a believer in the mock drafts that have him all over the board and defended UA’s uneven season that ended in a first-round NCAA Tournament loss to Buffalo.
“I think we had a great year,” Alkins said. “Dealing with all the adversity, I think people forget that we won a lot of games. We had a great record and we won the Pac-12 championships. It’s tough to play games with all that off-the-court stuff but I think we played well and we won the championship. Obviously our overall goal was to make it far in the tournament but I think we ended up well.”
Much of the adversity happened on the same day, Sept. 26. That’s when Arizona was implicated in the federal investigation into college basketball, and when Alkins broke his right foot, an injury that would ultimately cost him 12 games.
The injury is drawing some NBA scrutiny this week, too, though Alkins said it has been no big deal.
Doctors took “an X-ray and a CAT scan, that’s it,” Alkins said. “Everything’s healed 100 percent. I don’t have worries about that. Obviously, the fact that I hurt my foot, they’ve still gotta look into it. I’m OK with that. I’m confident in my foot.”
The oddest part about Alkins’ injury may have been that he came back to play nine games, then sat out one in mid-January because of soreness, played 34 minutes against Stanford three days later — and then sat out another two games.
Again, though, Alkins said that was nothing to worry about.
“When I first came back, I was playing 40 minutes right away,” he said. “I was supposed to ease my way in. It started to get sore but when I took that week or two off it went back to normal and I just finished the season.”
According to the mock drafts, Alkins will come out of the predraft process generating a pick somewhere between the end of the first round, and the end of the second round.
But neither Alkins nor UA teammate Allonzo Trier — who has fallen out of the major mocks — made much of them during Thursday’s interview sessions.
“I don’t care about the mocks. No one cares about mocks,” Alkins said. “That’s for the fans, that’s for all you guys to talk about. Even the coaches and the scouts tell me they don’t look at mocks.
“I think that’s how a lot of these (analysts) make their money. It’s like no one knows. In my opinion I think Deandre (Ayton) is the No. 1 pick, but they’re trying to sell it like the other guy (Luka Doncic) can be the No. 1 pick. That’s just so everyone can get more ratings and stuff like that.”
Ayton, by the way, is one topic Alkins doesn’t mind risking sounding hyperbolic. When asked if the former UA big man was the best pick, Alkins said:
“I mean, did you see his body of work? What he’s done speaks for itself, and I think it’s a perfect fit for him being in Phoenix. They need a big man.”
Alkins’ body of work at Arizona was more difficult to figure last season in part because of his foot, but not his body itself.
Now listed at 6-foot-4.25 with shoes, and 217 pounds with just 8.9 percent body fat, Alkins may not quite be a prototypical NBA wing but he’s an intriguing one.
“He’s a talented wing with good length, and he’s got NBA caliber size and strength,” Suns GM Ryan McDonough said. “The key for him is to be able to make spot up shots and defend. That will be his initial NBA role. Not everybody can be a superstar coming in and the best thing to get drafted and earn a spot in the rotation is do the few things you can do to get on the floor right away and go from there.”
Alkins didn’t help himself Thursday by shooting just 1 for 8 in his first combine game but his tests probably helped: He grew a quarter-inch from his without-shoes measurement a year ago and dropped body fat from 11 to 8.9.
And, as his careful stoplight answer may have revealed, Alkins is aiming to impress in other areas, too.
“You just gotta interview well and you trust the doctors,” Alkins said. “Anything that they do I’m prepared for, and everything else is gonna take care of itself.”
