Kentucky player’s ‘super long’ layoff ends, new basketball chapter begins
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For Zan Payne, there’s a different feel about Kentucky’s practices this preseason beyond the many new teammates entering and the host of last season’s teammates exiting the program’s revolving door. His father, Kenny Payne, is no longer associate coach. He’s on the staff of the New York Knicks.
“It’s definitely different not having him around,” Zan Payne said during a video teleconference Wednesday. “Like, practice is way different.”
When asked to explain this difference, he said his father would “yell at everybody (and) make us run a lot. . . . (Be) hard on everybody. He wants everything done the way he wants it. It’s definitely different in that way.”
For the younger Payne, there’s another unmistakable difference. He will be available to play. He sat out the last two seasons as he recovered from a knee injury sustained in his senior season playing for Lexington Catholic High School.
“It’s super long,” he said of the length of his rehabilitation. “Like, a year and a half now. I’m back at 100 percent. I feel good and I’m ready to go.”
A redshirt sophomore, Payne is in an unusual position in terms of experience. It will be his third season on the UK team. Yet, he has not yet played in a game.
“I’m basically a newcomer,” he said. “But, like, I’ve been doing the plays and all that.”
But there’s a twist.
“Coming on the court, I’m just like everybody else,” he said, meaning the 10 newcomers (counting new walk-on Kareem Watkins).
Payne described his expected role as playing hard and being a willing defender.
“I need to work on shooting and finishing at the rim,” he said. “Because, obviously, playing high school and coming to Kentucky is way different. Everybody’s 7-foot when you drive into the lane.”
As a high school player pre-injury, he was a main man. He was a 1,000-point scorer for Lexington Catholic. That included averages of 19.3 points and 8.7 rebounds as a senior.
“The coach always wanted me to just, like, score,” he said of what was expected from him in high school.
At Kentucky, the role he spoke of sounded like a so-called glue guy filling in where needed.
“Do what the game tells me to do,” he said. “That’s what (UK Coach John Calipari) says: just do what the game tells you to do.”
As have other UK players, Payne noted the newcomers’ eagerness to compete. This helps all players improve, he said.
Zan Payne noted his father’s long-standing influence.
“When I was little, we used to work out together, like, every single day,” he said. “He’d teach me everything to do.”
There was fatherly advice about the need to improve as a shooter.
“And always keep a high motor,” Zan Payne said, “and, like, playing hard at all times. Never, like, going on your knees. Like, being in really great condition.”
Father and son worked on conditioning during the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, the son said. The son would run while the father walked.
The father accepting a position with the New York Knicks required an adjustment.
“It was hard at first,” Zan Payne said. “Because he’s always been right here at my side. Everybody in my family, we were happy for him. . . . That was probably one of his dream jobs: working in the NBA. . . .
“I still talk to him every day, so it’s all good.”
This story was originally published November 4, 2020 at 3:02 PM.
