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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;After a day touring the Young and Reckless Clothing headquarters and the Call of Duty studios amidst a grueling pre-draft process in downtown Los Angeles, Dakari Johnson, along with D\u2019Angelo Russell, Devin Booker and a representative from the players\u2019 agency, CAA, drove east down the Santa Monica Freeway to the King Taco on Pico Boulevard, just around the corner from the STAPLES Center.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In between bites of Mexican food, Johnson noticed his iPhone screen repeatedly fading to black and shutting off, only to come back to life a moment later. With each death and resurrection of his phone, Johnson\u2019s patience wavered and Russell and Booker\u2019s laughter escalated.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;At first, the two lottery-bound guards convinced Johnson they had hacked into his cellphone, but at last relented. Johnson had been the latest victim of the&amp;nbsp;glitch within Apple's newest iOS software that allows users to send a specific string of characters through text messaging and remotely shut down another iPhone.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CIt was actually a good day until we got to dinner and they were being childish,\u201D Johnson jokingly told SI.com.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Johnson has been on the receiving end of pranks throughout his basketball career. A high-school teammate once called him from a private number, coaxing Johnson to believe he was responsible for a several-hundred-dollar pizza bill. On road trips with his New York Gauchos AAU squad, his teammates would often smear Johnson\u2019s face with gobs of toothpaste, body lotion and shaving cream while he dozed.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CWe\u2019d prank him because he would go to sleep first,\u201D said Dayton guard Scoochie Smith, a former Gauchos teammate. Johnson was always unable to find the culprit and never managed to return the favor.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CNow I\u2019m too wise and clever to fall for those shenanigans,\u201D he said.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Johnson\u2019s an easy target. He's an affable self-proclaimed goofball with a comical personality as large as his 7\u20190, 265-pound frame. \u201CHe finds joy in a lot of things, which is a good way to look at the world,\u201D said his mother, Makini Campbell. \u201CHe\u2019s always keeping people laughing and not taking everything so seriously.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Johnson\u2019s humor proved essential during Kentucky\u2019s back-to-back Final Four runs. He and current Los Angeles Laker Julius Randle created homemade music videos prior to their freshmen campaign. During the team\u2019s preseason trip to the Bahamas last fall, Johnson notoriously bumped his noggin on an exit sign in the hotel hallway. \u201CIt was kind of early in the morning,\u201D he said. \u201CI guess that woke me up a little bit.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Amidst the pressure to run the table, \u201Che kept things loose in the locker room and with his teammates,\u201D said Barry Rohrssen, a former Kentucky assistant now at St. John\u2019s. Yet there are two distinct sides of Johnson: The goofy comedian and the business-like big man, patrolling the paint on both sides of the floor.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CWhen we get in between those lines,\u201D Johnson said, \u201Cwe don\u2019t joke around.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u2022&amp;nbsp;MORE COVERAGE:&amp;nbsp;Draft buzz&amp;nbsp;|&amp;nbsp;Mock Draft 3.0|&amp;nbsp;Best NBA route\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Makini Campbell gave birth to her eldest son just as her collegiate basketball career at Long Island University&amp;nbsp;ended. She named him \u201CDakari,\u201D Swahili for \u201Che who brings joy to others.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CThe meaning definitely had a lot to do with where I was and what I was bringing forth into the world,\u201D Campbell said. Two years before the WNBA\u2019s inception, Campbell had no interest in playing professionally overseas and always foresaw a career in education.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Campbell strove to introduce her son to the world\u2019s cultures, embracing their family\u2019s roots from all over the globe. She visited her relatives in Ghana while Johnson was a toddler, and she has family in Granada, Barbados and scattered all across South America. \u201CHe went to a lot of schools that focused on project-based, applied learning, so he was just exposed to a bunch of different cultures,\u201D Campbell said. \u201CHe\u2019s lived in a very diverse world from lower school on, so he understands being just in a broader perspective.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt; Johnson\u2019s wider exposure allowed him to relate to every other child he came across, from his New York Gauchos teammates to the Asian exchange students at Montverde Academy in Central Florida. Johnson first arrived at a Gauchos practice when he was seven. \u201CI remembered the first time I ever met him,\u201D said Manhattan guard Tyler Wilson, a former Gauchos teammate. \u201CHe talked so much trash and then when he lost he was crying. It showed how much he loved it.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Johnson quickly grew comfortable in the Gauchos program, dancing in layup lines and cracking up his teammates. For a pre-teen, he possessed a rare gift for inducing laughter while also commanding the respect of his peers. \u201CIt was something,\" said Tommy&amp;nbsp;Swinton, Johnson\u2019s Gauchos coach. \"They always had respect for him and he was always their big man regardless.\"\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The big man quickly sprouted north of 6'0\", frequently bonking his head on doorframes. On sleepover road trips, which always began with Johnson demanding the entire back row of the team van so he could stretch his lanky legs, he provided endless comedy to his teammates and coaches. \u201CWhen he swam, he was just a big kid flopping around the pool,\u201D Swinton said through laughter. \u201CAll the kids would jump in the pool and then here comes big Dakari jumping in. The kid was just hilarious.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Campbell also heavily influenced Johnson\u2019s music taste. Her father is a longtime owner of a Jazz lounge in Brooklyn. She blasted country music while she cleaned the house and boomed old school hip-hop and R&amp;amp;B. \u201CJust a wide variety,\u201D Campbell said. \u201CTo keep him looking at the world with a broader sense.\u201D Johnson plays, and loses, \"Words with Friends\" with his grandmother Aminisha. He enjoys attending Bill Bellamy stand-up sets just as much as Drake concerts. He watches &lt;em&gt;The Blacklist&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;The 100&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Empire&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Prison Break&lt;/em&gt; on his Netflix and Amazon accounts.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CA lot of people could change when they start to get known,\u201D said Jason Wright, Johnson\u2019s childhood friend. \u201CHe hasn\u2019t switched up at all. He\u2019s a real genuine person.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;***\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Hours after the Orlando Magic selected Shaquille O\u2019Neal with the No. 1 overall pick in the 1992 NBA draft, Makini Campbell and the rest of her LIU teammates found themselves at O\u2019Neal\u2019s draft party in Manhattan. She followed O\u2019Neal throughout his career and urged Johnson to watch the early-2000s Lakers games. Knowing her son would likely eventually stand amongst the trees, Campbell hoped Johnson would soak in O\u2019Neal\u2019s passion for life, rather than shy away from his own enormous stature.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Campbell followed David Robinson\u2019s career closely as well, tuning in to The Admiral and Tim Duncan\u2019s championship runs with the Spurs. \u201CMy mom, she always was watching basketball,\u201D Johnson said. If her son learned anything from those Lakers and Spurs teams, it was winning. Johnson won a national championship alongside Russell and Kasey Hill under head coach Kevin Boyle at Montverde. When he wasn\u2019t beating the exchange students half his size in ping pong games to 21, Johnson was transforming into one of the nation\u2019s top recruits.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u2022&amp;nbsp;MORE NBA:&amp;nbsp;Common sense draft&amp;nbsp;|&amp;nbsp;Draft deep dive&amp;nbsp;|&amp;nbsp;R.J. Hunter's journey\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The winning continued at Kentucky, with both his seasons under Coach Calipari not ending until after Final Four appearances. \u201CTheir lives look very glamorous on TV, but behind the scenes they dedicate a lot of time to their craft,\u201D Campbell said. Johnson uses his mother\u2019s help to flip the switch from class clown to professional, bumping a playlist dubbed \u201COld School,\u201D during his pregame routine. The lyrics and tunes of Outkast, Aaliyah, R-Kelly, Tupac and Ice Cube flood his eardrums while he dresses in the locker room. \u201CThat slows my mind down and gets me ready to focus,\u201D Johnson said.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Throughout Calipari\u2019s six-year tenure at Kentucky, only one player has been officially listed on the team\u2019s roster as a center. Not Anthony Davis. Not even DeMarcus Cousins. It\u2019s Dakari Johnson. \u201CThat\u2019s my game,\u201D he said. \u201CI\u2019m a banger. I like physical play. I just like competing overall.\u201D Johnson\u2019s competitive streak will help his transition to the NBA. Projected to be drafted anywhere from the late first round into the early second, Johnson\u2019s most translatable skill will likely be his rebounding.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He\u2019ll also be able to fit in seamlessly within any locker room. There may not be another player in NBA history better prepared for rookie hazing. After all, it takes a thick skin to boast Johnson\u2019s simultaneous confidence and humbled self-awareness.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CDakari is a big guy with a big personality and a bigger smile,\u201D Rohrssen said. \u201CWhen he lets that smile out, it just makes everyone feel better.\u201D&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/nba/2015/06/19/dakari-johnson-ready-for-NBA-Draft>