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Diamond Stone a main draw at Breakout Classic

07/11/2014, 11:45pm EDT

By Ari Rosenfeld

Ari Rosenfeld (@realA_rosenfeld)
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This year’s Reebok Breakout Classic at Philadelphia University brought in over 120 elite prospects from around the country, featuring players from the 2015, 2016, and 2017 classes. Of these 120, 32 of them are ranked in the top 100 of their respective classes, according to 247Sports Composite rankings.

With so much talent assembled in one camp, it can be easy for an individual player to get lost in the shuffle. Fortunately for him, one player certainly did not have to worry about that.

Among so many top 100 players, Diamond Stone was, by any measure, the highest-ranked prospect at Philly U this week. ESPN, Yahoo!, and 247Sports all have him in the top 10 of their 2015 rankings, and each recruiting service ranks him as the top center in the country.

At 6-foot-10 and 255 pounds and possessing a variety of moves and countermoves in the post, Stone is used to dominating wherever he plays. During his junior season at Whitefish Bay Dominican High School in his hometown of Milwaukee, he posted season averages of 24 points and 13 rebounds, while shooting 69 percent from the field.

However, the Breakout Classic presented a different challenge for the Wisconsin native, as he matched up with two top-25 centers, Skal Labissiere and Elijah Thomas, and a rising star in 7-3 Jean-Marc Koumadje in his first three games of the event. He knew he had to shift gears playing against fellow elite big men.

“You don’t take plays off. You’ve gotta play hard every possession,” he said. “They’re top bigs too and they have nice games too. You’ve just gotta never put your guards down and always play hard.”

The matchup against Labissiere was the biggest draw of the camp’s opening night, with coaches like John Calipari, Bo Ryan, and Larry Brown all watching from the front row.

The two elite centers played to a draw with Stone finishing with eight points and three rebounds, and Labissiere matching his eight points and pulling down five rebounds.

Against Thomas on Thursday morning, both players finished without a field goal, with Thomas out rebounding Stone 8-2.

While his numbers were not comparable to those he posted during the high school season (players at the camp also only play about half of each game), Stone was still happy with how he played against such strong competition.

“[Against] Skal I had a little stomach flu, so in the second half I couldn’t finish it off with him,” Stone explained. “But I think I played good against him. Elijah today, me and him went at it. We both didn’t have a field goal, so it was a tough matchup. Physical matchup.”

It was not until his third game, against the towering Koumadje, that Stone truly broke out. He finished the game with 12 points, saying he “went at him pretty nice,” and held Koumadje to just eight points of his own.

He demonstrated his true potential in his final game of the night on Thursday, dominating en route to 19 points and four rebounds, and shooting 7-11 from the field.

It was an impromptu individual battle with GodsPower Ogide that ultimately brought out the best in Stone.

“I’m just playing my game and he just gave me a little bump,” Stone said. “He was just like ‘You know you suck, right?’. I was like ‘Alright.’ So I started playing for real, and then it just started happening. He started asking for the ball, I started asking for the ball. And I just started scoring.”

Although many players might get a bit nervous playing in front of someone like John Calipari, who recently extended an offer to Stone, he took a very smart approach to the situation.

“It’s just a regular game. If he’s not there or if he’s there, I’m playing my game,” Stone said. “All of these wonderful schools are here watching me and everybody else here. So some people might try to do too much out of their games, but I’m just gonna play my game. That’s why they recruit me, to play my game.”

While many of the nation’s premier coaches made a point to watch him play this week, Stone is not worrying too much about his recruitment right now. He has visited Marquette, Wisconsin, Illinois, DePaul, and SMU, but does not yet have a list of his top schools.

Instead, he is using this week’s camp to prepare for the Under Armour Association Finals in Atlanta next week. Stone enters the Association’s championship tournament with averages of 24.8 points (2nd highest in the Association), 11 rebounds (1st), 4.3 blocks (1st) and a 61% field goal percentage for his Milwaukee Young Legends team.

“With this camp, I’m just really trying to practice for Atlanta,” Stone said. “It’s practice for Atlanta. Atlanta is the UA Nationals, so that’s what I’m preparing for.”

“We haven’t really won too many games on the Under Armour circuit, so I think to win in Atlanta, that would be a big statement for us.”

Although he more than held his own in all of his individual matchups this week, the highlight of the camp for Stone actually came off of the court.

The Breakout Classic kicked off its action on Wednesday with a panel featuring a variety of current and former NBA stars, including Shaquille O’Neal, Dominique Wilkins and Shawn Kemp.

Stone, considered a potential NBA prospect down the line, made sure to pay extra attention to their sentiments, and even got some individual advice from Wilkins and Kemp.

“Dominique just told me to just keep working. He liked my number ‘cause I wear Number 21,” Stone said. “He just told me to keep working. He said I have a bright future ahead of me. Shawn Kemp just told me to keep working too. He told me the same things Dominique said.”

While Shaq did not have any advice for the young big man, Stone was still on the NBA legend’s radar.

“Shaq told me he was coming for me, so I don’t know whether to take that good or not,” Stone revealed with a laugh. “He just looked at me, gave me a stare, then pointed at me.”