Just a couple of days after the Kings drafted Willie Cauley-Stein, Willie found himself in Sacramento. I was fortunately enough to get the call to photograph his first full day in Sac-town! We got up early and headed off to the Embassy Suites where Willie was staying. We'd be using Uber all day to transport us to various locations around town.
The first stop of the tour the Sacramento midtown farmer's market. Here, Willie got a taste of the fresh foods Sacramento has to offer. He got to try a variety of fruits and local goods. In the picture above, Willie is tasting some locally produced honey.
The next destination was the courts on Mack Road. I was here last year when the Kings opened up these courts in the community. It was great to be back here seeing the courts being used for basketball. Quite a few kids were on hand to see Willie!
Willie had some great interactions with the kids. He was shooting around with them, signing autographs, and helping a few lucky kids dunk a basketball! The kids had a great time meeting the Kings newest player.
It was down to business after Mack Road. We headed out to the Kings Experience Center in downtown for Willie's first NBA press conference. He had to change out of his t-shirt and into a suite for this event. As you can see there was quite a large media presence for this.
Willie sat in the middle of Vivek and Vlade as he was introduced to the media. Willie was poised as he sat and answered questions from the different outlets. He's a total natural and you can tell he's done this sort of thing before.
Though Vivek and Vlade were there, Willie did most of the talking and did a great job of representing himself at the NBA presser. It looks like he's already got a good handle on how things go in the NBA!
When the media session was done the Kings staff gave Willie a tour of the Experience Center. He got to put on the Oculus device and get a 3-D look at the new arena and also got a chance to watch a promotional video as well. The video definitely pumps you up to be in Sacramento.
After a quick lunch we drove off to the US Senior Open. This was a huge event with a lot of security around. We all had to have special passes and an escort to get us around the grounds. The USGA did a wonderful job of welcoming all of us to the premises though.
Willie stood head and shoulders above most the people at the Senior Open so he was definitely noticed. Many of the folks attending the event took the time to wish Willie well and welcomed him to Sacramento.
Our final stop was at Gunther's Ice-Cream. Gunther's is my personal favorite place for ice-cream in Sacramento. Willie went behind the counter and scooped some ice-cream for a lucky patron!
