The stories of why coaches believe Wichita State’s Tyson Etienne is built to succeed
Wednesday will go down as a turning point in some way in the career of Tyson Etienne.
Following his final pre-draft workout, with the Memphis Grizzlies, Etienne has until 10:59 p.m. Central time to decide if he will remain in the 2021 NBA Draft and become a professional basketball player or return to Wichita State for his third season with the Shockers.
Regardless of what the 6-foot-2 guard from Englewood, New Jersey ultimately decides, the trainers and coaches who have worked closest with Etienne over the years are all convinced of one thing: he’s a pro — whether it’s this year or next year or sometime else down the road.
“I just know what type of kid that Tyson is and I have no doubt in my mind that it’s going to work out for him one way or another because he won’t let it not work out for him,” said Tim Laffey, who has been Etienne’s strength and conditioning coach in New Jersey for the last five years.
Ahead of Etienne’s decision, The Eagle spoke with all three of Etienne’s personal trainers, including Laffey, and WSU assistant coach Tyson Waterman, who recruited Etienne to WSU, as they all told their own stories about why they believe Etienne is destined to succeed. Here are their stories.
‘He would have destroyed the combine’
Even before Etienne first stepped foot on Wichita State’s campus, he was already preparing, training and handling himself like a professional athlete.
Tim Laffey, who has been working as Etienne’s strength and conditioning coach at The Annex in New Jersey since he was in high school, can attest.
“The pro guys who work with us, you can tell they’re different,” Laffey said. “They come in with their heads down and there’s not much chatter and they get to work. That’s exactly how Tyson was when he was 16, 17 years old. I remember thinking when he first started coming that this kid acts like he’s played in the NBA for 10 years. I’m been doing this for 20 years now and I’ve never worked with a kid like Tyson.”
Etienne was so intense in his first workout with Laffey that he wondered if the high schooler disliked him. As soon as the workout ended, Etienne was personable and jovial and Laffey quickly learned that this kid was really that serious about the work.
“When one of my athletes is within a rep, I like to tell them, ‘Pretty good, keep going.’” Laffey said. “I remember the first time I said that to Tyson, he immediately stopped in the middle of the exercise and asked, ‘What can I do better?’ I was shocked. I was like, ‘Oh no, you’re doing good. Keep it up.’ And he goes, ‘But you said pretty good, so there’s something I can do better.’ I just laughed. I had to change my wording with him after that. But that’s how he is. He’s always thinking about how he can be better.”
Immediately following the end of WSU’s season this past spring, Etienne took a week away from basketball and training where he said he only ate junk food. On Etienne’s first day back, Laffey said he measured at 8.9% body fat. After a few weeks of training, Etienne was already down below 5% body fat.
It’s been years in the making, but Etienne has transformed himself into an elite athlete. His 46-inch max vertical would have broken the NBA Combine record and Laffey says he would have excelled in the agility drills as well.
“If he would have been invited, Tyson would have destroyed the combine,” Laffey said. “We were all really upset he didn’t get invited because he would have just blown everybody away. He’s got a 46-inch vertical, a killer agility score and he can shoot the lights out. He would have just killed the combine.”
Even compared against elite athletes, Etienne’s work ethic stands out in Laffey’s mind.
“Tyson is the type of kid who if you tell him to throw the ball at the wall as hard as he can, then the first time he’s going to throw it as hard as he can,” Laffey said. “99% of people don’t do that. They don’t know how to give 100% instantly. Tyson is an instant 100% guy. In my 20 years, he might be the hardest worker I’ve ever seen.”
‘Tyson is a rare breed’
The most impressive part of Etienne’s pro day in Chicago to Trevor Rappa, his speed and agility trainer, wasn’t a play in the 3-on-3 drills but what came before them.
As he was warming up, Etienne was captured on video effortlessly throwing down a windmill dunk. Not bad for a 6-foot-2 guard that some scouts had pegged as solely a spot-up shooter.
For Rappa, it’s been fun to sit back and watch everyone else be astonished by Etienne’s 46-inch max vertical. Having worked with Etienne for three years now in New Jersey and Manhattan, Rappa has seen the progression behind closed doors.
“Tyson always had the raw ability to be able to jump like this, he just had to learn how to use that power and that strength and unlock them,” Rappa said. “What you’re seeing now is the result of Tyson putting in the time and attention to detail on the technical parts of his jumping and they’re becoming natural for him.”
Etienne is relentless in his training with Rappa. What makes Etienne unique from Rappa’s other similar-aged clients at Resilient Performance is mature mindset.
“Tyson is a rare breed because he doesn’t view training as something for just one season. He views it as a long-haul process to set himself up to have the best career possible,” Rappa said. “He’s better about that than maybe any other athlete that I’ve ever known. That’s why he’s done so well in these NBA workouts. He’s been handling himself and thinking like a professional since he was a teenager.”
Etienne’s diligence in his workouts is why he has been able to add eight inches to his max vertical in a single offseason.
Rappa would call that “abnormal” for just about anybody else. But for Etienne? Nothing seems out of reach with his work ethic.
“When you talk about Tyson, you’re not talking about wasted potential; he’s maximizing all of his talents every single day,” Rappa said. “He has this motivation and determination with his work ethic that pushes him day in and day out to reach what he is truly capable of.”
Whether or not Etienne ends up staying in the draft, Rappa said there’s no doubt that Etienne has a work ethic that belongs on the biggest stage of basketball.
“When you talk about how much attention to detail he has and how hard he works, that’s what separates Tyson from other athletes,” Rappa said. “There are a ton of really great athletes who are explosive and really powerful. Not only is Tyson both of those things, but he does everything else correctly. He eats well. He sleeps well. He takes care of his body. He prioritizes recovery. He has great habits and routines that help him perform at a high level. That’s the kind of stuff, from my own personal opinion, that stands out about Tyson. He just conducts himself in such a professional way.”
‘There’s no shortcuts with this kid’
The breakout season that ended with Etienne winning Co-Player of the Year in the American Athletic Conference becomes even more impressive when you take into account he didn’t have access to a rim to shoot on for the majority of the offseason.
Etienne’s home base in the offseason is the New York City metropolitan area and during the height of the coronavirus pandemic last spring and summer, indoor gymnasiums were unavailable and the rims on outdoor courts were taken down.
So how did Etienne train?
Through rain and shine, Etienne would show up in the parking lot of Riverside Church in Manhattan with a basketball and his skills trainer, John Hawthorne. Without a hoop to shoot on, Etienne would work on ballhandling drills but spent most of his time in visualization drills.
Etienne didn’t have the luxury of playing in 5-on-5 games for live repetitions, so he did the next best thing: Hawthorne would throw out game-like situations and defensive coverages and Etienne would rattle off where he would go with the ball as if he was in a game — all while standing in an empty parking lot.
“That’s how I know Tyson is ready and primed to do great things,” said Hawthorne, who has worked with Etienne since 2018. “Tyson is just a professional. Period. He’s been operating in that space for such a long time, it’s easy to work with him. There’s no shortcuts with this kid.”
In pre-draft workouts, Etienne has reportedly impressed NBA teams by his advanced decision-making operating as the lead ball handler out of the pick and roll.
Hawthorne said that’s the area where Etienne’s game has blossomed the most in the last year, dating back to those visualizations in the church parking lot.
“It wasn’t necessarily that Tyson ever lacked skill or was deficient in an area, it was all about how he read the floor,” Hawthorne said. “His ability to understand where everybody is, what the defense is attempting to do and how he can conquer it. What’s the best solution to the situation? He can find it immediately now.
“That’s why I think he’s surprised NBA scouts so much is because they probably watched his tape at WSU and thought he was primarily a shooter and they had him scouted as that and that only. What they’re seeing now is he’s capable of so much more.”
In Hawthorne’s mind, it’s a question of when, not if, Etienne will play in the NBA.
“Either option is golden, no matter what Tyson ends up deciding to do,” Hawthorne said. “He’s set himself up for success either way. He could go back and be one of the best basketball players in the country and turn himself into a potential lottery pick or he could come out right now and make some NBA team very, very happy.”
‘He’s in a position now where he can’t lose’
It was a happy accident how Wichita State discovered Etienne.
It was the first live session of the 2018 summer recruiting cycle and the place to be for college coaches was Atlanta, where the first week of Nike’s EYBL was kicking off. So of course Gregg Marshall was there, flanked by his newly-hired assistant coach, Tyson Waterman.
The first team they watched were the PSA Cardinals, an AAU team headlined by Cole Anthony, who became the No. 15 pick in the 2020 NBA Draft, but the WSU coaches were there to watch guards James Bouknight and Joe Toussaint. Little did they know that it would actually be another guard — Etienne — who would make the biggest impression.
“After the game, GM looks at me and goes, ‘I know we came to see those guys, but shoot, I like (Etienne),’” Waterman recalled. “I told him, ‘Coach, I am with you 100%.’ Tyson made that big of an impression on us.”
From there, Waterman was intrigued enough to make sure he was in attendance all over the country that summer for Etienne’s games. He quickly developed a strong relationship with Etienne and his mother, Anita Gibson.
He was sold on Etienne as a basketball player, but even more impressed in his talks with the 18-year-old.
“It was crazy because I could have an actual conversation with him, which is pretty rare when you first start recruiting a kid,” Waterman said. “He was so sharp. Most kids don’t understand the game the way Tyson does. His IQ is off the charts. And then as a person, hell, we would talk about things that he would educate me on. I was like, ‘You know, son, you’re one interesting little dude.’”
In his two years at WSU, Etienne has continued to amaze the assistant coach who recruited him.
Every time the team gathers to watch film together, Etienne is always listening attentively with a notebook and a pen, furiously jotting down notes and details from the scouting report — anything that he feels like might give him a slight advantage over the upcoming opponent.
According to Waterman, who said he spoke with an NBA team’s representative who interviewed and worked out the Shocker star, Etienne was the only draft prospect who arrived to the interview with the NBA team in a suit and tie with his backpack and notebook ready to go.
“That blew a lot of people in that organization away,” Waterman said. “That’s Tyson Etienne for you. He’s a pro even when he’s not on the floor. He’s a pro all the time.
“That’s why he’s in a position now where he can’t lose. If he stays in, he can’t lose. And if he comes back, he can’t lose. There’s no doubt in my mind that if we are so lucky to have Tyson back at Wichita State, then we are going to be a very special team this year.”
This story was originally published July 7, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
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