WER’E HERE now, so be here now. Though this is our Future Issue, nothing is ever truly promised. The past and the present have absolutely given us enough step-back jumpers and wildly explosive one-handed dunks to fully believe that Jalen Green’s future will be sunglasses-necessary bright. But Green himself isn’t about what’s to come. He’s about the moment. His feet, laced in “Aunt Pearl” KD4s, are planted firmly on the ground, in lockstep with his mind. Green is here now.
He’s earthbound on this February morning, taking the very JG photos that line these pages. The poses that dot his IG feed—laid-back grins and confident crouches—are the same ones that made us so excited about his first solo SLAM cover (salute to SLAM 225 with ’Rife and Gup). He then smiles about a few old memories during our talk on Zoom. To really be able to think about where JG’s going, we have to understand where he’s been.
Cut back to the middle of August 2018. The hardwood floor at Life Time Fitness on the West Side of Manhattan has been feeling a stampede. There’s a bunch of
