He’s played for three different NBA teams, in France, Germany and Lithuania, but Derrick Walton Jr has not experienced camaraderie like the Sydney Kings since his college days.
And as he prepares to farewell Xavier Cooks, he’s given his NBA-bound Kings’ teammate a piece of advice – forging a career in the NBA means remaining adaptable on court.
When 2021-22 NBL MVP Jaylen Adams left the Kings at the end of last season, Sydney had the unenviable task of finding an import of a similar calibre who was able to deliver on plans for back-to-back titles.
They found one in point guard Walton, whose stellar first season finished with a strong performance in the game that sealed the second title of Chase Buford’s tenure.
After the 77-69 defeat of the New Zealand Breakers at Qudos Bank Arena on Wednesday, Walton was named the MVP of one of the most hotly-contested championship series in league history.
Players who stand out in the NBL as much as Walton typically attract interest from wealthy European franchises or even the NBA, so the American is hesitant to commit to returning to the Kings next season.
But reflecting on his first NBL campaign after Wednesday night’s victory, he had high praise for the franchise that lured him to Australia.
“The best thing I can say about this is that I haven’t really been on a team that’s got as much camaraderie since probably around college,” he said.
“This is one of the groups that I feel like I finally got a chance to let my hair down and kind of be back at home in a college setting and just kind of be within a locker room and not really have a lot of distractions.
“I don’t think you understand how hard it is to win a championship at the professional level, so you take every single situation and chance you get and hone it, because who’s to say you’ll ever get the chance again.”
Walton was the only member of the Kings’ roster this season with NBA experience and said teammate Xavier Cooks, bound for the Washington Wizards in a matter of days, had it in him to succeed in that league.
But the guard gave Cooks some parting advice, too.
“The more you can adapt, the longer you can survive,” he said.
“I think he’s got a lot of stuff, the intangibles, that you can’t really teach.
“Some of the stuff he does on a nightly basis are some of the things people struggle with. For the most part, he’s a very high IQ guy, I think he’ll figure it out.”
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