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AUSTIN, Texas -- All eyes are on Tristan Thompson. The fourth-overall pick in the 2011 NBA draft is standing at the front of his minority leadership studies class in room 2202 of the Jackson Geological Sciences Building at the University of Texas. It's Thompson's first day of class after returning to school in Austin for his sophomore year, and he's been asked to describe himself using three adjectives.

Playing icebreaker games at UT isn't what the basketball phenom from Brampton, Ont., expected to be doing this fall. Thompson should have signed a three-year $10.3-million contract in early July, spent the summer preparing for his rookie campaign with the Cavaliers in an NBA summer league, and then set up in Cleveland last month. The Cavs are hoping the six-foot-nine forward will help turn around a team that was an Eastern Conference-worst 19-63 last season, the first after LeBron decided to take his talents from Lake Erie.

But the NBA lockout has put everything on hold. So Thompson, who left school for the pros after wrapping up his freshman year last spring, is back as a full-time student, at least for as long as the NBA owners and players can't agree on how to divide $3.82 billion in revenue. His three adjectives? "Funny, intelligent, and swaggy." His last proves the first, and gets a laugh from classmates in one of the four courses he's taking on his way to a degree in communications and one day, perhaps, a career in broadcasting. Basketball can wait; for now Thompson is a maturing student learning a very different set of lessons.

LESSON 1: I'M A BUSINESS, MAN

It is barely past 10 a.m. and the temperature has already cracked 100° F in the drought-ridden Texas hill country. Thompson is riding the Crossing Place bus through campus, on his way to class from the first of what are often two daily workouts, dabbing his forehead and neck with a towel. This morning was an individual skills session run by Chris Babcock, an assistant coach with the Texas Longhorns and son of former Toronto Raptors GM Rob Babcock (Thompson, a Raptors fan, still rips Chris about his dad's trade of Vince Carter). While he's having a hard time handling the heat, Thompson has no problem fitting in as a student. Today, he's wearing a plain white T-shirt, baggy basketball shorts and old-school Chuck Taylors. Hints of the NBA player-to-be are his understated black diamond earrings ("Big jewellery is done," he says) and a tan MCM leather knapsack, only available in high-end shops like Saks Fifth Avenue. "My little treat," he says.

That's about as extravagant as Thompson gets. In fact, one of the reasons he opted to return to Austin for the duration of the lockout is money. Training to be an NBA player is expensive. There are elite facilities in cities like Las Vegas and Chicago if you want to drop the cash. But Thompson, who has yet to draw his first pro paycheque, does not. At Texas, he can work out in facilities that rival those belonging to any NBA franchise and work toward his degree (UT has honoured his original scholarship, so his course work is covered) for the low, low price of nothing. "Other places charge between six and 10 grand a month," says Thompson. "Why put myself in debt?"

His main expense is the furnished, off-campus apartment he shares with his girlfriend, Whitney, who graduated from UT in the spring and works for a recruitment company in Austin. Thompson loves fashion but only has two suits. He's aching to buy his first car. "It's the first sign of having money," he says. "Going into the dealership and putting my money down and my name on something." But that, too, can wait until he signs his first contract. For now, he's borrowing a friend's ride and gets by on a loan advanced to him through his agent, Rich Paul, and on small amounts of endorsement money from Nike and a trading card company.

Thompson knows that soon enough he'll be able to buy the Mercedes-Benz truck or the Cadillac Escalade he has his eye on, and begin planning the retirement of his mother, Andrea, who drives a school bus in Etobicoke, Ont., a suburb just west of Toronto. Since he knows he won't be riding the bus to class forever, Thompson doesn't sweat it. Besides, he says, parking on campus is brutal.

LESSON 2: GRIND TO SHINE

Identifying a potentially impactful NBA big man isn't particularly hard. There are only so many broad-shouldered, six-foot-nine, left-handed 20-year-olds who can jump like someone using a pogo stick and run like the wind. Even non-basketball fans could have observed Thompson's second workout of the day at Denton A. Cooley Pavilion-the university's 44,000 sq. ft. basketball palace-during which he dunked the ball 29 out of 30 times in less than two minutes in one drill, and realized they were watching something special.

He is, as the Longhorns' strength and conditioning coach, Todd Wright, says, "freaky." As a freshman, Thompson could play every minute of a game without tiring. He's added some lean muscle over the course of a year at Texas and is at least 230 sculpted pounds, and getting stronger, Wright says, without compromising fitness or quickness. Working out with the incoming Longhorns in early September, two players vomited during pre-season conditioning, throwing up into a big green garbage can in the corner. Thompson barely seemed winded, his chest rising and falling rhythmically with his hands on his hips, waiting for the next drill.

Harder to identify are the character traits that will allow Thompson to nurture the skills that will maximize his athletic gifts. A clue comes in the subtle tattoo inked in cursive on the meaty part of Thompson's left hand. It reads "G2S" and stands for Grind to Shine, the motto (and tattoo) he shares with Longhorn freshman Myck Kabongo, the highly rated point guard from Toronto, and other graduates of the elite Grassroots Canada AAU program that helped put Thompson on the recruiting map as a 14-year-old. It's Thompson's only ink work. "If you grind, things will go your way, they'll be shining," says Kabongo, who claims to have authored the expression.

Thompson's willingness to grind may end up being his most important attribute. As impressive as his workout is, even more telling is what comes next. With the court clear, Thompson grabs a ball, summons over a student manager to rebound, sets up in the middle of the lane, five feet from the rim, and begins stroking one-handed form shots, over and over. Special emphasis is placed on beginning his shot with his shoulder, keeping his elbow tucked in and hyperextending his wrist for an exaggerated follow-through. It's boring stuff, but if there's one knock on Thompson it's that he's a poor shooter, even by college standards. In an otherwise shining Big 12 freshman-of-the-year season in 2010-11, Thompson shot just 48.7 percent from the free-throw line, indicative of shooting fundamentals requiring renovation. He converted an impressive 54.6 percent of his shots from the floor, but that total was swelled by dunks and put-backs, the product of his athleticism and hustle. Easy baskets are harder to come by in the NBA, however, so being automatic from 15 feet is essential. It's potentially worth $50 million over the course of his career, and he knows it. "Before my jumper used to be a sling shot; it was like a throw. Now it looks like a jump shot. It looks pretty," he says. "That's the thing about a jump shot. You have to be constantly repping it and repping it the right way. It's better to shoot 100 shots the right way than 200 the wrong way."

Shooting is a craft that requires hours and hours of careful practice. It can be a grind. But as his tattoo would suggest, Thompson seems up for it.

LESSON 3: A PAUSE IS AS GOOD AS A REST

Thompson's journey to the NBA began in earnest at 15, when he left home and Brampton's St. Marguerite d'Youville Secondary after ninth grade to attend St. Benedict's Prep, a traditional U.S. high school power in New Jersey. He hasn't stopped moving since, though his mother, Andrea, knew the oldest of her four boys could manage. "He was always ready, he always has had a schedule to follow," she says. "He was very independent."

When the family moved from Don Mills, Ont., to Brampton, Tristan was in the fifth grade and his younger brother DiShawn was in grade one. As a school bus driver, Andrea had to leave the house early and relied on Tristan to get himself and his younger brother out the door and to school on time; lunches packed, door locked. Initially, she hid in the basement to see if her instructions were being followed. She says she never had to blow her cover-Tristan got it right. "That's when I knew he was going to be okay," she says now, laughing.

But being a basketball prodigy is a peripatetic existence. After an on-court blowout with his coach Danny Hurley at St. Benedict's (it made news across the U.S., but Thompson says it was overcooked and he's on good terms with Hurley now), Thompson left midway through grade 11 and headed to Las Vegas to attend Findlay Prep, where friend and fellow Torontonian Cory Joseph was enrolled. It was his third high school in four years, and after slightly more than a year (and two U.S. national high school championships), he was off to Austin.

Today, instead of getting to know Cleveland, Thompson walks the UT campus like he owns the joint. Strolling through the student activity center after class it's fist bumps and "wassups" from all comers. "I've bounced around a lot and been to a lot of different schools, so I haven't really been able to build a lot of relationships," he says. "But coming back here it's almost like reliving high school and college all at once. It's a great opportunity."

For the first time in recent memory, he's not officially a basketball player. Thompson can use the Longhorns facilities and coaches to train, but NCAA rules prevent him from actually practising with the team. He doesn't have mandatory study hall. If he wants to take a nap, he can. In listening to him talk about something as simple as getting his own apartment, there's the sense he's enjoying this brief, pressure-free transition that most 20-year-olds take for granted. "It was another big step in my life," he says of getting his own place. "It feels good. You can walk around in your boxers. You can cook when you want. You can use the washing machine when you want. It's just freedom."

LESSON 4: HONOUR THY MOTHER

Thompson isn't only back in Austin for the freedom college life affords. He's got promises to keep. Neither of his parents attended university. His father, Trevor, drives a semi-trailer. His mother has driven a school bus most of his life, so even though he's got a job lined up before graduation, finishing his degree is an expectation his mother wants fulfilled. It was more important to him than playing for the Canadian national team during Olympic qualifying, for example, though he says he wants to play for Canada in the future. "I told my mom, 'If there is a lockout I'm going to go back to school.' My mom was always really big on [me getting my degree]. She always told me education will get you far in life and make a lot of money for you." His mother has worked-almost literally-since the moment she arrived in Toronto from Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, at 15, reuniting with her own mother who had left the island for Toronto in 1971 when Andrea was two.

Her NBA-bound son is special, but no more than her other boys (DiShawn, 16, Daniel, seven, and Amari, 5), and as the eldest, Tristan is expected to set the tone. She supports, but doesn't pamper. "I get them ready for life," is how she describes her parenting philosophy. "When I grew up in Jamaica, I had to do everything for myself. You have to walk to school, two hours, you have to come back. You have to get the water on your head. It's not like here where you turn on a pipe and the water is here. Maybe now they have it, but when I was there it was different."

Andrea's first job in Toronto was folding towels at a west-end laundry for a penny each. She would have loved to play basketball, but work came first. Though, at six-foot-two, she might have been pretty good.

Work toward his degree, get his game in shape, and keep his mom happy. The NBA lockout hasn't treated Tristan Thompson badly, it turns out. The basketball world will turn its full attention on him soon enough, putting his swagginess to the test. For now, he sees no problem riding the bus to class instead of rolling through his rookie NBA season. No problem at all. Lesson learned.

Michael Grange will provide insight and analysis on all the top stories in sports.