Ray McCallum Jr. knows he took a risk entering the NBA Draft following his junior year at the University of Detroit.
So often in these cases, you wonder about the advice that players who leave college early — the ones who aren't definite lottery picks or even first-round shoo-ins — are getting when they make their decisions.
Is it coming from honorable sources with NBA contacts? Or is it from so-called friends and street agents, who tell the players what they want to hear about their draft stock, not necessarily the truth.
In McCallum's case, whether his decision turns out to be the best one or not in the end, he knows he went about the process the right way.
"We got plenty of advice from the right people," McCallum said. "It's a risk, really, either way. It was definitely a tough decision. All the feedback we got made me feel pretty comfortable."
Still, it wasn't until his father, Ray McCallum Sr., also his college coach, gave him his blessing that Ray Jr. felt comfortable making the jump.
"When he could look me in the eye, man-to-man, and say, 'I think it's your time,' ... ever since then I've had all the confidence in the world," Ray Jr. said.
Most mock drafts — at least at this point, less than three weeks before the June 27 draft — are still not projecting him for the first round.
However, as they say, it only takes one team.
The potential problem for McCallum is that there's a logjam of point guards in this draft. McCallum is not even ranked in ESPN analyst Jay Bilas' top-10 point guards available, which quite possibly could push him into the second round.
"I know there are a lot of point guards coming out," McCallum said. "I looked at everything. I felt, if anything, I'm right there with them, if not better. It's for me to prove that to teams."
McCallum, who has been training in Los Angeles in recent weeks, is on the workout tour these days. He's already worked out for the San Antonio Spurs, Houston Rockets, Indiana Pacers and Denver Nuggets. He said he has at least seven more scheduled before the draft, one of which reportedly will include the Detroit Pistons.
What some might forget because he chose to play in the Horizon League for his dad, McCallum was a five-star recruit, rated the No. 6 player in the nation by Scout.com, coming out of high school. He could have gone just about anywhere, including UCLA, Florida and Arizona.
The concern now is whether he might get penalized to some extent for playing against lesser competition, night in and night out.
His role at Detroit required that he do much more than distribute the ball as a point guard. He averaged 18.7 points, 4.5 assists and 1.9 steals last season when he was named Horizon League Player of the Year.
"People question if I'm a point guard or not, but I'm a natural point guard," McCallum insisted. "I've always been a point guard. I like to get my teammates involved.
"But my dad needed me to score the ball. That's an area where I grew my game."
McCallum, who is 6-foot-2, 191 pounds, impressed the scouts, general managers and coaches at the NBA pre-draft camp when he recorded the 10th-best vertical jump there.
He jumped 40 inches compared to 36.5 for Michigan's Trey Burke, expected to be the first point guard drafted. McCallum also had a better performance than Burke in a lane-agility drill, which is considered a key part of the workout for guards.
So, there is hope that the athleticism he's put on display will move him up in the pecking order before draft night, if it hasn't already.
McCallum said he believes he's also demonstrated to NBA teams that he's a better perimeter shooter than they might have thought.
In his opinion, the first round is still a possibility.
"I'm in position to make that happen," McCallum said. "I'm going to try my hardest to make it happen."
