GRAHAM COUCH

Couch: Inside Denzel Valentine's three days at the NBA Draft

Graham Couch
Lansing State Journal
Denzel Valentine dribbles on the streets of New York during a promotion video for Macy's ahead of Thursday's NBA Draft. It was his first endorsement contract.

NEW YORK – On a crowded New York street, Denzel Valentine caused heads to turn. Some people stopped and stared. Others approached him. Sometimes he approached them.

“What do you think of Denzel Valentine?” he asked one woman. “Valentine is pretty cool, that’s what I hear,” he continued, baiting her.

It was his very first professional endorsement deal — a promotional video shoot for Macy’s in Manhattan. His mother, in the meantime, went shopping so he’d have enough underwear.

NBA Draft week is one of transition, a Club Med version of purgatory. It is a bridge between a player's college days and their greatest basketball dreams, a crossover from modest means to mind-boggling wealth. The days are a mix of scrutiny and pampering, stress and relaxation, family and business, culminating with a seminal moment in any player’s life.

For Valentine, that happened at 9:09 p.m. Thursday, when the Chicago Bulls selected him with the 14th overall pick. He’ll be introduced in Chicago Monday and spend the week there, a new chapter beginning.

For three days in New York, Valentine let the Lansing State Journal come along for the ride.

Denzel Valentine tries out a mattress similar to the one Casper is giving him for free at the Grand Hyatt New York Hotel. All sorts of companies, from cell phone providers to grooming products, offered Valentine free stuff. He accepted.

‘If I don’t want it, my people will’

At some point in Valentine’s NBA career, he’s likely to turn down an endorsement opportunity or not want every gadget that’s offered to him. He is not yet at that point.

Cell phones, headphones, grooming products, mattresses — Valentine was offered and gladly accepted a lot of free stuff in New York. Companies want to be associated with NBA players. This is getting in on the ground floor. Before it becomes clutter.

“If I don’t want it, my people will,” Valentine said.

His endorsement with Macy’s included the department store providing him his suit for draft night. Part of the deal was for Valentine to do a man-on-the-street-style video for Macy’s, interviewing New Yorkers on camera and seeing what they knew about him, if they knew him at all.

“I know who you are,” a man said, walking briskly up to him. Meanwhile, a few yards away, a woman intrigued by the cameras asked, “Who is this?”

Many people did know who he was. More than I expected. And still more just figured he was someone important, someone worth all the commotion and cameras. Perhaps an athlete.

Valentine engaged anyone in his path. He agreed to follow a kid on social media if the kid followed him. He asked another to point out where Lansing was on a map of Michigan, using his hand of course. And he did one interview while eating a hot dog purchased from a nearby vendor. He walked up and down subway tunnel steps and dribbled a basketball across the street — whatever the cameras wanted.

He’ll be fine doing endorsements. The question Tuesday was still what city he’d be doing them in.

Denzel Valentine walks out of the New York subway during a promotion video for Macy's ahead of Thursday's NBA Draft. Macy's is his first endorsement contract.

Denzel’s knees and Draymond

That evening, before heading to a Yankees game with several other draft hopefuls and their families, Valentine’s parents, Carlton and Kathy, stepped off the elevator at the Grand Hyatt hotel looking visibly stressed about the entire draft experience. It didn’t help that the invite to New York for Denzel and his family came less than three days before they arrived — the sort of lack of long-range planning that drives Kathy insane.

“We are nervous,” she said. “Nothing is in your control. There’s nothing else like it.”

“I’ve got to stop looking nervous,” Carlton said. “I’ve got to enjoy it.”

Part of the anxiety for Carlton Tuesday came from a growing number of media reports that an MRI scan on Denzel’s right knee was scaring NBA teams away and that he might fall in the draft because of it.

By Wednesday morning, Denzel’s knee had become the prevailing pre-draft story surrounding him. His first of several interview sessions was with ESPN’s Andy Katz in a small room on the 14th floor of the Grand Hyatt. The interview began like this:

“In three, two, one: So, Denzel, during the course of your senior season, you had a scope on your left knee. Freshman in high school, injury on right knee …”

The conversation lasted about two minutes, 90 seconds of which were spent on his knees.

“I get the most questions about that … and Draymond,” Denzel said, walking to the elevator.

In fairness to the overdone Draymond Green comparisons, they’re not unflattering, and Green’s own words have fueled them.

A few minutes later and several floors down, an interviewer holding an iPhone as a video camera prepped Denzel for what he planned to ask.

"We’ll talk a little Draymond …”

Denzel looked over and smiled, “I get that a lot.”

Denzel Valentine, left, and agent B.J. Armstrong celebrate after the Chicago Bulls selected Valentine with the 14th overall pick at Thursday's NBA draft.

‘Officer Mo Mo’

On the eve of the draft, Denzel’s agent, B.J. Armstrong, hosted a dinner for Denzel, his family and a few of Denzel’s close friends at Il Mulino, a cozy upscale Italian restaurant in Greenwich Village.

Armstrong played alongside Michael Jordan for the Bulls in the early 1990s and, before that, played at Iowa and Brother Rice in Bloomfield Hills. He also represents Draymond Green and, relevant to this week, Derrick Rose, who was traded from the Bulls to the New York Knicks on the same day as Armstrong’s dinner for Valentine.

In that setting, it was easy to see how close the Valentine family is and how much fun they have together. Denzel is not a star here. He’s son and younger brother, a friend and boyfriend. He is teased about ordering spaghetti and about his childhood nickname given to him by his father, “Officer Mo Mo,” because he wanted to be a cop. He and a couple of friends laugh uncontrollably at times.

And he is appreciated.

“If anybody deserves it, it’s him,” childhood friend, high school teammate and former Iowa guard Anthony “Sapp” Clemmons said during dinner. “Because he was always that guy, ‘Come on, Sapp, let’s go workout.’ ‘Come on, Sapp, let’s go lift.’  We’d shoot after school, workout 6:30 in the morning. He was always that guy to bring you along.

“Even now (in New York), ‘Just get here.’ Same thing as back then, ‘Just come on, brother. Get here.’”

Denzel Valentine gets dressed, including his MSU socks with his likeness on them, in his hotel room before Thursday night's NBA Draft.

Draft day

Whatever nerves existed a couple days earlier were dissolved by draft day, helped by time with people who make Denzel and his parents comfortable. Mostly, Denzel’s older brother, Drew, who arrived Wednesday.

Both Carlton and Kathy appeared at peace with letting go of any semblance of control.

“Drew kind of like calms all of us down,” Kathy said.

Denzel Valentine's mother, Kathy, right background, became emotional when she saw her son in his suit ready for the NBA Draft.

Denzel said he had slept well the night before, a full six hours straight. The only anxiety coming during his sleep.

“I dreamed that I got picked up (in the draft) and I got traded and then I got traded again,” Denzel said.

As Denzel put the finishing touches on getting dressed for the draft, he was surrounded by his parents and brother and a few friends. He had a stylist, too, crammed into his hotel room on the 16th floor of the Grand Hyatt.

“There’s no point in stressing,” Denzel said. “It’s just like, alright, I put my work in, I did what I’m supposed to do, I did well in my workouts, I did well in interviews. I didn’t have issues with misbehavior. I’ve got nothing to worry about. It’d be different if I had something to worry about. But I’ve got nothing to worry about. My family’s here. Life’s good.”

“It’s weird. I almost feel like I’m at another event,” Kathy said. “I don’t know. I think he’s helping. He doesn’t even seem nervous.”

A few minutes later, as Denzel turned around fully dressed in his suit and bow tie, Kathy began crying.

“I was thinking what it must feel like for a mother to see their son get married or something,” she said. “Because I almost lost it. I could have just sat there and cried for like 20 minutes. It was very emotional to me. He looked like a man. He looked gorgeous to me.”

The Valentine family, (from left) Carlton, Denzel, Kathy and Drew, get set for the NBA Draft Thursday night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The Chicago Bulls selected Denzel with the 14th pick.

Draft night

Denzel spent the early part of the evening in the green room area with Carlton, Kathy, Drew, Armstrong and MSU coach Tom Izzo, killing time, talking to other players and, for a while, former MSU teammate and close friend Gary Harris, who convinced security guards to let him past the rope.

“Coach Izzo was hilarious,” Kathy said. “I think he wanted to keep the mood light, upbeat. He was making jokes about me. He always makes jokes about me, ‘Oh, wait until this team gets you …’”

The mood remained light through the first few picks of the draft. And then, as the draft reached the area Denzel could be chosen, Denzel began asking his mother if she was OK, a way to calm his own nerves, as well.

“He said, ‘Mom, it makes me feel better if I can put my arm around you,” Kathy said.

They waited. But not long.

Denzel Valentine hugs his father Carlton after being selected 14th overall by the Chicago Bulls during Thursday's NBA Draft in New York.

Suddenly, ahead of the 14th pick, the cameras started to close in on Denzel.

“They came my way with like 10 seconds left, ‘Are they pointing at me or DD (former MSU teammate Deyonta Davis)? Or who’s behind me?’” Denzel said.

“Once they said Denz… They just said my name!”

Kathy screamed. Denzel, Drew and Carlton leapt to their feet.

As Denzel walked up on stage to shake the commissioner’s hand, Carlton and Drew embraced. There was a noticeable intensity to the hug.

“My dad is our ultimate role model,” Drew said. “When Denzel was younger, we were kind of the only ones who believed something like this was possible.

“I just told Drew, ‘Thank you, thank you for all you did for him.’” Carlton said.

For Carlton, there was relief in that hair-raising moment when he heard Denzel’s name called.

“I didn’t know what to expect this week,” Carlton said. “This is a different kind of business. Everything is not what it seems. There are a lot of things that go on behind the scenes that we know nothing about about. There’s a lot of deals made, there are a lot of favors done, there’s a lot of stuff that goes on that me and you have no idea about. I’m sure happy he got in the right situation.”

Beyond her initial scream, Kathy said the feeling was less exhilarating than she imagined.

“For me, it was just, ‘Good for them (the Bulls),’” she said, wearing a Bulls cap, like the rest of her family. “I just thought, ‘They’re smart. They’re getting a really great basketball player.’”

Denzel was in the NBA, but he didn’t yet trust the destination as final. As he headed from two television interviews to his press conference down a hallway in the bowels of Barclays Center, he exhaled deeply a couples times — days, weeks, years of work coming to fruition.

“So am I like set in stone or am I going to be traded?” he asked.

He had just seen three of his peers dealt away by the team that selected them. And now he, a member of the Bulls for all of five minutes, began to wonder if he should temper his enthusiasm for Chicago. After all, he had already been traded himself twice the night before.

“I was nervous about that (being traded),” Denzel said later, his Bulls cap firmly on his head, his family and friends around him in a Barclays Center VIP room for players, the first round over. “I was walking back thinking, ‘Let me not get too hyped because I never know where I’ll be at.’ I hope I’m staying with Chicago.”

Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.