'Something in my DNA': How Alex Caruso's journey came full circle with the Thunder
Oklahoma City once changed his basketball future, then he made good on the opportunity.
Photo by TJ Dragotta on Unsplash
OKLAHOMA CITY — For a week back in October 2016, Alex Caruso thought his basketball future was in Europe.
Maybe Germany.
Probably Poland.
He hadn't bought a plane ticket to make his journey across the Atlantic, but after going undrafted, then being invited to training camp by the Thunder but eventually cut, Caruso felt like his options in the States were fleeting. No contract. Little contact.
"And then ... the Blue called," Caruso said of the Thunder's G-League team. "I came up here, took a physical, took a tour of the practice facility and then started my journey here."
Now, his journey has led him back to Oklahoma City.
On Monday, Caruso returned to the Thunder practice facility, this time as a big part of the franchise's push for a championship. He was acquired in a trade last week as the Thunder and the Bulls swapped former lottery pick Josh Giddey for a guy who spent his first three years as a pro either in the G-League or on a two-way contract.
The thing is, Caruso has come so far from those early years that no one saw this as a lopsided trade.
Unless, of course, you're talking to folks who think the Thunder got the way better end of the deal. Caruso might make the Thunder into the best defensive team in the NBA, though the world champion Celtics might want a word about that.
But while Caruso's early days as a pro seem long ago and far away, listening to him Monday during a 20-minute interview session with reporters, it was clear those were formative times for him. He might be an NBA All-Defensive honoree who is likely to sign the biggest contract of his career next summer, but in many ways, he is still the NBA hopeful who found himself sitting in then-Thunder coach Billy Donovan's office getting cut near the end of training camp almost eight years ago.
I asked Caruso during Monday's interview session how that season in the G-League impacted who he is as an NBA player today.
"That and then my two two-way years in LA, just having to really get it out of the mud," he said. "You hear that expression a lot, and sometimes it may not always be true, but for me, undrafted ... "
He glanced across the expanse of the practice facility.
"There's a story I don't think a lot of people know," he said, "that there was a week span before I came to the Blue ... where I thought I was gonna play in Poland. A couple of days later, I talked to a coach of a team in Germany.
"So to go from that, playing a full 50 games with the Blue that first year, going to three Summer Leagues, it just taught me what I needed to do to get to the level that I wanted to play at."
Caruso is a self-made player in many ways.
Even though he had a solid career at Texas A&M, finishing as the program's career leader in assists and steals, he realized he had to do more after he went undrafted. Because he wasn't the biggest, only 6-foot-5 and 186 pounds. Or the fastest. Or the springiest.
But he knew he could play hard, tough defense.
That would be his calling card.
"I had to figure out a way to get on the court," he said. "That was the big thing, just figure a way to get on the court. Take my six minutes, turn it into eight, turn it into 10, turn it into 12, and that's kind of what I did when I got to LA and I got on the two-way (contract)."
Caruso credits the Lakers for giving him chances, starting with then-head coach Luke Walton.
"He threw me in the fire a couple of times," Caruso said, "and sometimes I failed and sometimes I had success, but the times that I failed, I learned from it and I figured out what I needed to do better."
Still, he was on a two-way contract for two seasons. That meant his salary wasn't guaranteed. Neither was his spot on the roster or his future with the organization.
Were there moments of doubt that a full NBA contract would happen?
Or was there always a belief that it would?
"A little bit of both," Caruso said when I asked him. "I'd be lying if I didn't say there weren't days where you feel a little down and the weight or the pressure of getting it done doesn't bear on you.
"But I'm a really competitive guy, and I think I'm the most competitive with myself."
He had high expectations for what he could accomplish, but every bit as high were his expectations of how hard he would work. How much he would push.
Caruso admits he's not sure where that came from. Maybe it started when he was growing up in College Station, Texas. Or in high school at A&M Consolidated. Or in college at Texas A&M.
"But that's something in my DNA," he said. "I expect to get the job done whatever it is."
Before the 2019-20 season, Caruso landed that full NBA contract, signing as a free agent with the Lakers.
But he just kept pushing. He wasn't the defensive player then that he's become. Wasn't the offensive player, either, a low-usage guy who makes a high percentage of shots from behind the arc, passes well and doesn't make many mistakes.
He's efficient on offense and devastating on defense, a combination that has made him one of the most sought-after role players in the NBA. But he says it all goes back to the lessons he learned and the course he set during his early years as a pro, including that first season in Oklahoma City with the Blue.
Where might Alex Caruso be if not for that opportunity?
"I didn't know what I was gonna do," he said. "I truly didn't. ... Coming to OKC, just decided if I was gonna try and play in the NBA, I needed to get my foot in the door.
"Probably the best place I could have been."
Now his basketball future is in the place where his basketball journey changed forever.