Meet the Sports Psychologist Training the Minds of the NBA's Top Draft Prospects

Graham Betchart built a career as a "mental skills" coach for top NBA draft prospects like Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns. Now he's trying to build a brand.

Jaylen Brown was puzzled when he first read the headlines. When the six-foot-seven guard enrolled at University of California, Berkeley, in the summer of 2015, few expected that he would remain past his freshman year; until the NBA banned high-school players from entering the draft, players like Brown rarely went to college at all. The five-star recruit already had the strength to compete against NBA bodies, and even at 18 he could bulldoze even the staunchest of defenders.

His sole season in Berkeley was a successful one, but when Brown finally did declare for the NBA draft, the adulation he had come to expect never materialized. Instead, there were concerns about how Brown, whose jump shot epitomized streaky, would translate to the perimeter-dependent NBA, and issues on top of those. Brown read about how he was apparently too arrogant, and how his draft stock was allegedly marred by terrible interviews. It was the first negative feedback Brown had received in his life as a basketball player. He initially thought he was being pranked.

The NBA circus was unlike anything the 19-year-old had experienced before. After spending an entire day in May interviewing with NBA teams in Chicago in an attempt to quell any doubts, he headed to Michael Jordan's Steakhouse to unwind with a late-night dinner.