LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- There was Jarred Vanderbilt. He was ranked highest on the list of eight dazzling high school basketball players John Calipari welcomed to the University of Kentucky in the summer of 2017.

The unforgettable Marvin Bagley, the irrepressible Michael Porter Jr. and the fabulous Mo Bamba were the three guys ranked at the overall top of that prep class.

Strangely, Calipari didn't sign any of those three.

According to the 247Sports data base, it was Vanderbilt, a man-sized forward from suburban Houston, who was the prime catch in another prime UK recruiting class.

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After Vanderbilt at 9, there was Hamidou Diallo, a guard, at 11. Then center Nick Richards at 15. A pair of precocious forwards, Kevin Knox and PJ Washington, came next in the rankings, at 18 and 19.

You could find two more UK recruits, Quade Green (No. 33) and Jemarl Baker (No. 90), down the rankings list.

But at No. 20 was Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, a player in prime position to win an NBA triple crown this season — scoring champ, MVP and league champion.

With an average of 32.7 points per game, he won the scoring title by more than 2 points per game over Giannis Antetokounmpo. He is likely to be voted the NBA MVP any day, becoming the first former Kentucky player to claim that award.

(Last season, the MVP winner was announced May 8. The three finalists are Gilgeous-Alexander, Nikola Jokic of the Nuggets and Antetokunmpo of the Bucks. The Bucks exited the playoffs in the first round. The Nuggets and Thunder played in round two. Maybe the league did not want the Jokic/SGA decision to be a distraction to the series. That distraction is no longer an issue. Perhaps Gilgeous-Alexander will lift his hardware this week.)

And Gilgeous-Alexander is driving the Thunder to their first NBA title (unless you count the one the franchise won in Seattle in 1979, long before the SuperSonics left to Oklahoma City in 2008).

Starting at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday when the Thunder host Minnesota in the first game of the Western Conference finals, SGA will continue his pursuit of an NBA championship. Either way, he s to be on a direct path to the NBA Triple Crown.

Not a bad run for a guy who was one for the rare Kentucky recruits that Calipari allowed to play in the Derby Classic at Freedom Hall in 2017. Typically, the former UK coach was unyielding. His recruits played in the McDonald's all-American and Jordan Brand Class games. Period. End of discussion. Benefit to the Derby Classic and Derby Festival? Irrelevant.

Gilgeous-Alexander came to town and was the most dynamic and entertaining player on the court. That was the last MVP award he won, scoring 29 points with nine rebounds and six assists while leading his team to victory.

In his only season with the Wildcats, he was UK's second-leading scorer (behind Knox), averaging 14.4 points, 4.1 rebounds and 5.1 assists. Any ideas that Gilgeous-Alexander wouldn't be another Calipari one-and-done disappeared.

But NBA teams did a marginally better job of evaluating his future than the recruiting gurus did.

Gilgeous-Alexander was selected No. 11 in the 2018 NBA Draft, still behind Bagley (pick 2) and Bamba (pick 6) as well as Knox (pick 9).

In seven NBA seasons, SGA has scored 11,294 points, a mere 3,032 more than than Bagley (3,479), Bamba (2,461) and Knox (2,322) combined.

How have the professional careers unfolded for Gilgeous-Alexander's UK classmates?

Knox finished this season as a reserve with Golden State, his fifth NBA team. He has started 77 games over his career, with 57 of those starts coming during his rookie season with the Knicks.

Originally a teammate of Gilgeous-Alexander in Oklahoma City, Diallo departed the NBA for the Shanxi Loongs in China after last season. Over six seasons with three teams, Diallo averaged 8.6 points while shooting 27.4% from the three-point line.

Injured most of his time in Lexington, Vanderbilt has been injured often in the NBA. He played 17 games as a rookie, 11 in his second year, 26 last season with the Lakers and 36 more this season. The Lakers are his fourth NBA team.

PJ Washington has delivered the second-best pro career of the group. He's become a mainstay in Dallas, a force on the Mavericks team that made the NBA Finals last season. Washington averaged 14.7 points and 7.8 rebounds this season.

Richards celebrated his fifth NBA season with a trade from Charlotte to Phoenix, where he started 34 games. He averaged 9.5 points while playing just less than half the game. He should enjoy at least another five years in the league.

Green left Kentucky for Washington during his sophomore season. He has never played in the NBA, bouncing to Portugal and Kosovo after several seasons in the G-League.

Like Green, Baker also left Kentucky. Two seasons at Arizona. Two more at Fresno State. One playing for Richard Pitino at New Mexico as late as 2024. There is one report that Baker played for Svendborg Rabbits in Denmark last season.

The reports on Shai Gilgeous-Alexander are confirmed. He starts the Western Conference finals with the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday Night, in line to add the MVP award and an NBA championship to the scoring title he earned this season.

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