R.J. Hunter's Predraft Diary: From Cinderella to Lottery Pick?

Former Georgia State guard R.J. Hunter is no one-shot wonder. He's been busy in the three months since he catapulted his name into the national lexicon and Ron Hunter off a stool. One of the most lethal shooters in the nation surfed the high of his March Madness status into the 2015 NBA draft, but don't get it twisted; he's been in the league's scouting cross hairs since making an impression at Kevin Durant's and LeBron James' respective skills academies last summer.

Between a litany of workouts and racking up air mileage to audition for potential suitors, R.J. dished with Bleacher Report on the firsthand experience of a first-round prospect caught between closing his college career at its pinnacle and seizing the opportunity before him.

It's been crazy for me since the NCAA tournament. I watch the video of my game-winner at least once a week. It seems like it was years ago even though it was only a few months, but I still get recognized everywhere as the "One Shining Moment" chair kid instead of an NBA prospect. Although my shot against Baylor put my name on the map, the last few months have been more crucial in solidifying my future at the next level.

Since declaring for the NBA draft, the predraft audition has been a different type of grind than painstakingly raising the profile of a mid-major hoops program.

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The NBA definitely makes you earn it right before you can get to the big show. It's been the most hectic time of my life. To cope, I've developed tunnel vision as a necessity to block everything out and focus on the minute details to impress teams during individual workouts.

It's a test of mental endurance. Toward the end, it's kind of easy to let up on that tunnel vision as it ticks toward single-digit days before the NBA draft. But there were still workouts and interviews with teams to finish.

After declaring, I set up in a pad in Chicago to prep for the NBA Draft Combine with Wisconsin's Sam Dekker after we both signed with the same agent. Being in Chicago, McBuckets [Doug McDermott] would work out with us pretty often.

This experience is light years away from where I was three years ago even as a coach's son. Today, I receive recognition on a daily basis in most cities I'm in, but I remember being overlooked outside my own locker room a few years ago. I was a 2-star prospect, 25th in the state of Indiana for my class, and never forgot it.

I'm proof that people will find you if you put in the work and you're good enough.

Some people are just late bloomers. Some guys fly under the radar because they aren't on a good team or play with a more high-profile teammate, like I did with Marquis Teague.

Ball-handling and man-to-man defense—after three years playing zone—have been the two focuses of my predraft training. For a month, we woke up at 7:30, started working out at 9 in the morning until 11:30 and then lifted.

On what little time I had off before the combine, I spent a few days off in "The A" kicking it with my ex-teammates Devonta White, Rashaad Richardson and Manny Atkins. There's no talk about basketball when I'm around, though, because that's what I do 70 to 80 hours a week. I want to try to maintain some semblance of normalcy.

My dad has been positive, but we try to cut down on the basketball talk as well since he's not coaching me anymore. Marquis has been real supportive. He doesn't want to give too much advice because everybody has their own tailored situation.

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At the actual combine, coaches don't say much. Scouts, general managers and front-office folks are the ones we communicated most often with. The highlight of that week was meeting Jason Kidd, head coach of my personal all-biracial all-star team. I wasn't nervous, but I did utter an "oh, shoot" in shock before I came back down to earth and locked back in mentally.

The draft combine was only two days of workouts, but it was a seven-day process in total, including physicals and interviews behind the scenes. The team workouts ramped up after the combine, and the travel becomes the toughest part. It feels like prep for the pro life on the road. The workouts varied from team to team because they're doing their own thing, testing players on different skill sets based on what they're looking for. You really don't know what they're going to throw at you.

For example, my first workout was with Oklahoma City and involved a lot of rapid-fire stuff, and instead of resting between drills, they'd give us mental exercises. Utah was difficult in the first five minutes because of the thin air in that altitude. It was like jumping out of an airplane. Phoenix was the toughest workout. Anybody who's been there would attest to that.

It's cool going from city to city just hoopin', especially because I could be in summer school right now.

A lot of these workouts for teams become about them trying to break you down mentally and figure out what's in your head or test your decision-making process. A lot of questions teams have are just a mind game. They ask a lot of situational stuff or what-ifs to see how you'd react. Or they ask the same question over and over.

The question I get from every team is about playing with my dad. I just tell them it was a dope time raising that program's profile but I thought my time was up. Because I played for my father, I think they also want to know how I receive tough coaching from someone I don't share DNA with.

They also ask why my shooting percentage dipped so much from my sophomore to junior years.

I just tell them everything else went up, including steals, rebounds and blocks. That's just one part of the game—although it's a major one for me. Teams may try to pigeonhole me as a shooter early on, but I've shown that I'm skilled enough so that even if my shots aren't falling, I could be a playmaker in other capacities.

There have been perks, though. You've got to keep in perspective that you're traveling from city to city, playing hoops on an NBA team's dime, in a different uniform every day and staying in first-class hotels. It's a grind if you can appreciate the positives of this situation for what it is.

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Out of the cities I touched down in for workouts, Toronto was my favorite. It's not far, but it doesn't feel like any other NBA city. It's got a European feel to it. I flew there right after Milwaukee to just shop and chill before my Raptors workout, so that was a cool experience.

Yet I haven't lost focus on what this is all about. On an overall scale of 1 to 10, my anticipation for the draft is a 10 all the way. I received the draft invite, but I'm going to spend that night in Atlanta with my family and friends. It's a day I want to remember and set up perfectly. It's a win-win situation in my estimation, but I'm excited to see what the future holds regardless.

I'm going to be stressed out, but there's not going to be anything like hearing my name called by the commissioner.