Separated by a season or three in college, the Timberwolves' Karl-Anthony Towns, New Orleans' Anthony Davis and Sacramento's DeMarcus Cousins nonetheless share unusual skills for such big men and a sense of fraternity.
All three attended the University of Kentucky — albeit at different times — and on at least one occasion have returned to Lexington in summer to play pickup games on the same floor.
"They're fun, they're a lot of fun when you get to go against the best of the best in the league," Towns said. "That's why we're here in the NBA, because we love playing the best, the most elite competition in the world. To be able to go there and step into one gym against each other is pretty cool."
Towns recalls multiple occasions the three have played together in summer. Davis remembers only one, during Towns' lone collegiate season on his way to being the No. 1 pick in the 2015 draft.
"Three players make a name for themselves in the NBA, some great games," Davis said. "Everybody has gotten better, myself, DeMarcus and Karl all have gotten better since then. I can only imagine how it'd be now."
Davis will start for the Western Conference at next Sunday's NBA All-Star Game in New Orleans, his adopted hometown. Cousins will come off the bench for the West as one of its seven reserves. Towns will play in Friday's Rising Stars Challenge, awaiting the day soon when he joins them in Sunday's marquee game.
They never played on the same Kentucky team — Cousins left in 2010, Davis played one season in 2011-12 and Towns one season in 2014-15 — but they consider themselves united in a way, cut from the same swath of Kentucky-blue cloth.
"It's a brotherhood," Towns said. "No matter if you were the star player to the last player on the bench, there's a journey you have to go through and it's the same journey. No one will understand unless you're a player there."