Brown took an interest in Kabengele after the 25-year-old big, who is fighting for a rotation spot, started coming to him early on for advice in training camp. Though Kabengele is just a two-way player hoping for some second-unit minutes, he wanted to learn how to do his job as if he was the starting center. “I asked him a lot about pick-and-roll angles, how I should roll and what I should look for,” Kabengele said. “It is a little selfish, but I want to roll so I can be a threat as well. I know that (Jayson Tatum) and Jaylen, they’re that “guy” and you got to respect what they do. So I’ll ask Jaylen how can I be a threat when I’m setting screens. … He told me tips and tricks on how to angle it, how I should roll, things to look for before I set a pick.”
But Kabengele feels he’s finally found the right path. “I’m not the same person I was in my rookie year, or even last year when I was in the G League,” he said. “A lot of times, I would come into games and practices and think, ‘All right, I have a skill set.’ It was a little bit of arrogance I had. It wasn’t laziness, but I had a good sense of what I needed, then every time I fail and go through these things, I’m like, ‘Why are things not working?’ Then I did some self-reflection.”