Imagine Marquis Teague is standing at the top of the key, ball in hand, at a dead stop.

Can you see it?

In the time it took you to read that sentence, he’d already be at the basket.

Teague, already famously Brandon Knight’s successor and fifth overall in John Calipari’s family tree of point guards, is fast. Fast enough that teammate Jarrod Polson said Teague is probably the fastest player he’s ever shared a court with. His pure speed is made even faster in context, Polson said, because of how proficiently Teague handles the ball.

But Teague, younger brother of former Wake Forest star and current Atlanta Hawk Jeff Teague, doesn’t define himself in terms of speed, ball moves or any one area of the game.

“I like to call myself a playmaker,” Teague said. “If you give me the basket I’ll score every time but if you cut me off, I’ll make a good pass. I like to take whatever the defense gives me and not force anything. I think I’m a good ball handler and I’m quick with it. I’m still working on my outside shot to get that better.

“And that’s not just on offense. I like locking people down on defense, too.”

The 6-2, 189-pound Indianapolis native said he doesn’t mind the comparisons to Calipari’s point guards: Derrick Rose, Tyreke Evans, John Wall and Brandon Knight. He knew he’d get the comparisons when he committed to UK.

But that direct comparison is also one of the main reasons he chose to play for the Cats. Simply put, in Teague’s mind, Calipari knows how to get a point guard ready for the NBA even if each one he’s pushed through to the draft—with an average draft position of 3.5, no less—has faced different challenges to get League-ready.

UK coach John Calipari, here with former Kentucky point guard Brandon Knight, has a well-documented history of sending his points to the NBA.

Rose wanted to pass too much, Calipari said. Evans didn’t want to pass enough. Wall moved too fast for his own good. Knight needed to shoot more.

Calipari said one of the areas of Teague’s game most worth highlighting is his physicality.

“We may do more pick-and-rolls than I've ever done in my career,” Calipari said. “With Derrick Rose and Tyreke, I didn't want people to go to them because I wanted them to score. With John Wall, his speed, I didn't want to bring anybody to him. They would go under pick-and-rolls and make them all shoot jump shots. With Brandon, that wasn't his game. Marquis, with the pick-and-roll, is a little different. He's physical to the rim. That may be what we do with him. I don't know till we get him there and we start playing.”

Teague said he’s flexible in how Calipari handles him. That’s another reason he came to Kentucky; he said he has always felt a connection and a mutual level of trust with the coach that began during the recruiting process.

When he agreed to come to Kentucky, he brought his game and all of his tools with him. The tools seem refined, too; he averaged 22.7 points, 5.9 assists and 4.2 rebounds as a senior in high school. Now it’s up to Teague, Calipari and their relationship together to do with the freshman what had been done with the previous four. “I’m here to listen to (Calipari). That’s how I’ll get better,” Teague said.

Though nobody saw it, Teague got a preview of a direct comparison during an unofficial visit to UK during his junior year of high school. He played pick-up during an open gym session against Wall, who was still at UK at the time.

Teague held his own, he said.

“(Wall) told me, ‘You’re tough. Keep doing your thing. You’re going to be good,’” Teague said. “I wasn’t scared and I didn’t back down even though he was John Wall. It would have been easy to sit back and admire. I came in here and played hard. It showed me that I can be good at this game if I keep working and if I keep my head right.”

Now imagine Marquis Teague is dribbling idly mid-court, about to sprint toward the hoop. Consider how fast it’ll take him to get there.

It may not take him much longer, or so it seems, for UK’s No. 25 to become Calipari’s No. 5.

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Read more about Teague, the rest of Kentucky's newcomers and a 386-page more-than-comprehensive season preview in The Cats' Pause 2011-12 Kentucky Basketball Yearbook. The book is available now online, or click here to find a list of stores where the book is available.