How Denzel Valentine evolved into a player of the year candidate

Before flying to an AAU tournament the summer before his junior year in high school, Denzel Valentine asked Michigan State coach Tom Izzo what else he needed to do to earn a scholarship offer.

Izzo's response was blunt. He wouldn't promise a scholarship until Valentine proved his outside shooting wasn't a liability.

For the son of a former Michigan State star who grew up attending basketball camps at the Breslin Center and staying up past his bedtime watching Spartans games, Izzo's words were humbling yet inspirational. As soon as the meeting was over, Valentine headed straight to the gym, where for more than three hours put himself through shooting drill after shooting drill.

"I had to drag him out of there," his dad Carlton Valentine said. "That's Denzel in a nutshell. If someone says he can't do something, he's going to work as hard as he can to prove them wrong."

When Izzo next watched Valentine a few weeks later at the prestigious Adidas Super 64 tournament in Las Vegas, the versatile guard sank seven 3-pointers in a single game. Hours later, Izzo sent word that the Michigan State scholarship offer Valentine coveted would be waiting for the Lansing native when he arrived home.

The ferocity with which Valentine pursued his dream of playing for Michigan State turned out to be a harbinger of things to come. Fueled by the desire to forge a legacy rivaling that of the Spartans legends he grew up idolizing, Valentine has worked relentlessly the past four years to evolve from a fancy-passing role player, to a key starter on a Final Four team, to a surprise national player of the year candidate.

Valentine is averaging 19.9 points, 8.9 rebounds and 8.6 assists so far this season, propelling third-ranked Michigan State to a 7-0 start despite the graduation of last year's leading scorer Travis Trice and leading rebounder Branden Dawson. The versatile 6-foot-5 guard has saved his best performances for some of the Spartans' highest-profile games, notching triple-doubles against both Kansas and Boston College and torching Boise State for a career-high 32 points.

At halftime of Michigan State's victory over Providence in the Wooden Legacy title game last Sunday night, the greatest Spartan of them all paid Valentine the ultimate compliment.

"He's like myself and Draymond [Green] because he can just do everything," Magic Johnson said. "He can rebound, score, assist and he gets so much joy out of setting his teammates up. His basketball IQ was already off the charts when he came to Michigan State, but the way he's shooting the basketball right now is amazing."

Praise like that from Johnson is especially meaningful to Valentine because he is so well-versed in the history of Michigan State basketball. The boy who used to stand outside the Spartans locker room with hats or T-shirts for players to sign has worked diligently to become the guy who today's Lansing kids line up to see.

He has turned his trademark court vision into a more potent weapon by curbing his habit of attempting the spectacular pass rather than the simple one. He has reshaped his body by eliminating fried foods and sweets from his diet and spending a couple hours each day doing conditioning, weightlifting and agility drills. And he has revamped the shooting stroke Izzo once feared would be a weak spot, turning it into enough of a strength that opposing defenders don't dare go underneath screens against him anymore.

"I work hard because it's important to me to leave a legacy at this place, to have my name mentioned among the greats," Valentine said. "Michigan State means a lot to me. I love the school, I love Coach Izzo and I love everything about this program. I'm going to give my all to this place."

Exceptional passing and court vision have always been signatures of Valentine's game because of the way his father trained him as a kid.

Carlton Valentine led Michigan State in scoring and rebounding as a senior in 1988, but he soon discovered there wasn't much of a market in professional basketball for an undersized 6-foot-5 post player. Therefore when sons Drew and Denzel were born in 1991 and 1993, their father made a point of teaching them the ball handling and passing skills they needed to be effective perimeter players.

"Most times when you get tall kids in elementary school and middle school, they're playing with their back to the basket," Carlton Valentine said. "I vowed that my kids were never going to be like that. They were going to be face-up guys."

Playing quarterback for all his childhood football teams also influenced the younger Valentine on the basketball floor. Reading defenses and distributing the ball to open teammates became natural to him in both sports.

When Valentine led his father's team at Sexton High School to back-to-back state titles in 2011 and 2012, he took more pleasure in setting up future Iowa guard Anthony Clemmons and future Michigan State teammate Bryn Forbes than scoring himself. He very nearly averaged a triple-double as a senior with 14 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists.

While behind-the-back assists and no-look passes were a staple of Valentine's high school career, Michigan State coaches sought to rein in his flashiness once he got to college. Valentine's assist-to-turnover ratio was barely 1-to-1 as a freshman. It's nearly 4-to-1 so far his senior season.

"He had a great feel for the game, but he was too erratic and he would make silly plays," Michigan State assistant coach Dane Fife said. "Coach Izzo has done a great job of curtailing that without causing Denzel to lose any of his creativity. He hasn't lost who he is, but he now understands some of those plays were hurting himself and hurting the team."

If passing always came naturally to Valentine, outside shooting is a skill he had to work to master. Valentine has raised his 3-point shooting from 28.1 percent as a freshman, to 37.7 percent as a sophomore, to over 40 percent the past two seasons, an ascent he attributes to the long hours he spends working with his older brother to tighten his release and make it more consistent.

Drew Valentine roomed with college basketball's career leader in 3-pointers while at Oakland University, so he had his younger brother do many of the same drills Travis Bader did each summer. Every day, Drew would have Denzel make a certain number of dribble pull-ups, ball screen jumpers and catch-and-shoot threes.

If Denzel swished three in a row, he could move on to the next spot on the floor. If he even hit the rim two consecutive times, he'd have to go back a spot.

"That way you've got pressure every time," Drew said. "The reason we only count the swishes is to make it harder. That way when you get in the game, you have more margin for error."

When Denzel endured a dreadful 2-for-13 shooting night at Rutgers last January, he asked his older brother to rebound for him after the team's charter flight landed. From 2-3 a.m., Drew had Denzel take nothing but touch shots and spot-up threes to help him regain his rhythm and his swagger.

Valentine's increased confidence, quick release, smooth footwork have been a lethal combination this season. Not only is he shooting a career-best 42.6 percent from behind the arc, he also left teammates in awe when he hit five straight threes in less than four minutes to put away Boise State last Friday in the Wooden Legacy semifinals.

The shooting barrages and triple-doubles have received plenty of attention so far this season, but an underappreciated aspect of Valentine's strong start is how much he has improved defensively. Questions about his quickness and athleticism have always dogged Valentine, but he is more capable of staying in front of opposing guards or chasing them around screens now that his body is more svelte and lean.

One of the biggest changes Valentine has made is improving his diet. That has meant no more lemonade with dinner, no more blueberry Pop-Tarts before morning workouts and especially no more late-night visits to Fresh Fish & Fry for their famous "crack chicken."

"The hardest part is definitely eating less carbs and not eating late at night," Valentine said. "We do so much during the day. When we get home, we just want to relax with some good food."

While Valentine mostly supplements his improved nutrition with yoga, weight training and balance and agility drills, he's also not afraid to try something less traditional. The past two summers, he and Forbes have occasionally conducted workouts wearing elevation training masks designed to simulate high-altitude conditions.

"It was so bad," Forbes said. "At first you start to panic because you feel like you can't breathe. It was extremely difficult to finish a workout wearing that thing."

Even with all the hard work Valentine has put in, it's fair to question whether he can maintain the pace he's on. Not even future top draft pick Ben Simmons, fellow national player of the year candidate Kris Dunn or college basketball's career triple-double leader Kyle Collinsworth can match Valentine's all-around production so far.

Valentine's dad says his scoring average is sure to drop a bit. Valentine's coaches are hopeful they won't have to lean on him this much all season. As for Valentine himself, he insists he's prepared to do whatever it takes to keep winning.

Regardless of how the rest of this season plays out, Izzo has seen more than enough to know he made the correct decision offering Valentine a scholarship all those years ago.

"I've had some hard-working guys, but I'm not sure I've ever had a kid that works harder than him.," Izzo said. "I used to call him a poor, poor, poor, poor, poor man's Magic and a poor, poor, poor man's Draymond. Now he's moving up to just a poor, poor, poor man's Magic and a poor, poor man's Draymond."

However many poors Izzo wants to use, that's still high praise for a kid from Lansing with modest athleticism but an insatiable work ethic.

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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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