Kingston Flemings Reminds Kelvin Sampson Of James Harden, One Of His Favorite NBA Players To Ever Coach, In One Super Important Area

PROVO, Utah — When the subject turns to his freshman point guard Kingston Flemings’ work ethic, Kelvin Sampson finds himself thinking of James Harden, who Sampson coached as an assistant with the Houston Rockets. “One of the kids I enjoyed coaching in the NBA was James Harden,” Sampson says. “Most people judge things by what you read and hear. But he was one of the hardest working guys I ever coached.

“I was with him for 82 straight games. He never missed a game. Between 10 and 11 (am), he would take anywhere between 150 and 250 shots. Then he’d do the same thing from 4:30 to 5:30. And then he’d go play at 7’o’clock or 7:30. That’s 500 shots. And he shot most of them at some kind of speed. But he repetition-ed his way into success.”

Sampson sees the same kind of approach happening with Flemings at the University of Houston, a program Sampson’s built around development. Flemings’ work with UH assistants Hollis Price and Anthony Goldwire has helped turn him into a much better 3-point shooter in his freshman year (hitting at a 38 percent clip) than many expected. It’s a small part of what makes him an expected Top 6 pick in June’s NBA Draft and one of the most compelling players on the floor even when a BYU vs. Houston game (9:30 pm Saturday night, ESPN) means a reunion of elite young big men AJ Dybantsa and Chris Cenac Jr.

But the long-range shooting improvement says everything about Flemings’ commitment to getting better.

“King came in here as non-shooter,” Sampson says. “But just because you’re a non-shooter doesn’t mean you’re going to stay a non-shooter. . . I don’t look at guys’ stats to determine whether or not they can shoot or not. I look at the work they’re willing to put in. And see if they’re serious about it.

“And Kingston is.”

Serious enough that Flemings elected not to go to his senior prom in order not to miss any of his weekend workouts in Houston after his San Antonio high school basketball team season’s ended in the state semifinals.

“Whether it was 5 am every single morning at Brennan High School,” UH assistant coach Kellen Sampson says, “to the time he spent in the springtime. Every weekend his senior year, he spent in Houston. Training and working. Heck, he gave up his senior prom to be in Houston to train.”

Kelvin Sampson is fanatical about how much character matters in whether a player, even an ultra-talented player, is successful or not. He saw that character in the relentless way James Harden worked, how Harden’s actions defied many of the narratives around him (which Harden pushing for that trade from the Clippers to Cleveland certainly won’t help). And Sampson sees it in the way his young freshmen stars Kingston Flemings and power forward Chris Cenac Jr. work and how they never back down from hard coaching.

Kingston Flemings — All Work, No Prom

The now 19-year-0ld Flemings immediately started seeking out more work as soon as he arrived on the Houston campus. “You could see it in the summer time,” Hollis Price, the former star guard for Sampson at Oklahoma turned longtime UH assistant, tells PaperCity of Flemings. “He wanted to shoot outside of our workouts. And not just with us. He’d have guys he’d bring in, who’d work him out extra.

“That just showed the work ethic he had. I knew right then, he was going to fit right in with our program. All of our pros, they’ve taken that step that they need to be working on their game every day. Kingston’s already there.”

“Whether it was 5 am every single morning at Brennan High School to the time he spent in the springtime. Every weekend his senior year, he spent in Houston. Training and working. Heck, he gave up his senior prom to be in Houston to train.” — UH assistant Kellen Sampson on Kingston Flemings’ work ethic.

Flemings’ greatest unguardable gift is his ability to get into the paint, and often right to the rim, whenever he wants. His first step is so quick that it can still catch defenders who’ve been shown reams of video clips of him in preparation a little off guard. Some things you just need to see to believe. Flemings got to the rim so often in UH’s last game — a 24-point demolition of a good UCF team that saw the 6-foot-4 guard shoot 8-for-12 from the field — that he could have charged Johnny Dawkins’ team a real estate commission.

Kelvin Sampson, who’s been developing elite guards for decades, names Hollis Price (Oklahoma) and  Eric Gordon (Indiana) as the guards he’s coached who could get to the rim as easily as Flemings. “That Price kid was pretty good at Oklahoma,” Sampson says when I ask him for a Flemings comparison. “Big 12 Player of the Year. First-team All-American. Not Third Team. First Team. Hollis Price, Dwyane Wade, T.J. Ford, David West and Nick Collison.

“Eric Gordon — pretty good. Pretty explosive down the lane. I would say those two.”

Chris Ceanc prefers the De’Aaron Fox comp for his buddy. Flemings is often a blur with the basketball, always looking ahead, sometimes a one-man fast break.

Now when teams do frantically collapse on Flemings more as he gets into the paint, he’s finding his freshman running mate Chris Cenac Jr. and UH backup center Kalifa Sakho more and more for high-flying alley-oops.

That’s the result of work and reps too. “I think Chris and I just know each other so well by now,” Flemings tells PaperCity. “I’m always looking for all my guys though.” Sakho, the 6-foot-11 center from France and Guinea in West Africa (where his parents are from) by the way of Sam Houston State, is still learning how ready he needs to be for those Flemings’ no-look passes.

You never know when one might be whizzing by. It’s hands up or easy basket chance missed when Kingston Flemings has the basketball in his hands.

Flemings is not just a gym rat. He’s a serious student of the game. One whose inquisitive enough to ask plenty of questions and get his professors (coaches) thinking too.

“The thing that’s most impressive about him is when you give him instructive ideas on the court, he wants to know the why,” Goldwire, who along with Price works with Houston’s guards, says. “Hollis and I do a great job of explaining him the why. We show him actions he could have done or should have done and he’s usually already clocked it.”

This a high-level basketball thinker.

Is there some James Harden in Kingston Flemings? No doubt in Kelvin Sampson’s estimation. Sampson would tell you James Harden is largely misunderstood. Work appreciates work.

And Kingston Flemings’ work isn’t done at Houston. Not just yet.

No outlet covers UH basketball throughout the entire calendar year with more consistency and focus than PaperCity Houston. For more of Chris Baldwin’s extensive, detailed and unique insider coverage of UH sports — stories you cannot read anywhere else, stay tuned. Follow Baldwin on the platform formerly known as Twitter here.