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@BIGFOOTHOOPS @BLUESTARSPORTS
 #212
Features
28. MUSIC
AND ME
With his roots firmly
planted in the rap world,
Damian Lillard speaks on
his lyrical inspirations.
3 2 . YO U N G A N D
GETTIN’ IT
It says here that the NBA
Draft’s Class of 2017 could
be good. Really good.
3 4 . AW W Y E A H
At the Panini NBA rookie
photo shoot, we asked
the young NBAers some
hilarious questions, and
they responded with
equally hilarious answers.
36. ROOKIES
M O S T L I K E LY
TO…
Prediction time!
3 7. # S L A M T O P5 0
You know the drill: The
only player list that will
ever matter.
4 0 . S T O RY
TO TELL
Our staff’s favorite NBA
narratives headed into
the season.
42. STILL
STRIVING
Kings guard Buddy Hield
is heading up a rebuild in
Sacramento that actually
looks pretty damn
impressive.
4 6 . S TA N D
U P F O R YO U R
RIGHTS
We are so here for the era
of basketball superstars
using their platforms to
speak their minds and
push for social change.
6 SL AMONLINE.COM
NOV/DEC 2017
5 0 . CA R RY O N
TRADITION
This year’s men’s and
women’s NCAA seasons
should provide plenty
of intrigue. Allow us to
explain why.
52 . B AG TA L K
Duke’s Marvin Bagley III
(right) reclassified so he
could immediately prove
why he’s been so hyped
over the past few years.
5 8 . FA M I LY OV E R
E V E RY T H I N G
Michael Porter Jr is joining
his brother, two sisters,
aunt and father at the
University of Missouri. And
they’ve got a lot of work
to do.
64. GUESS
W H O ’ S B AC K
Miles Bridges returns to
Michigan State with some
unfinished business to
handle.
6 6 . W H AT I F N I C K
ANDERSON MADE
ONE OF THOSE
F R E E T H R O W S?
An excerpt from Shea
Serrano’s hilarious new
book, Basketball (and
Other Things), dives into
some of basketball’s most
important, unanswerable
questions.
BAGLE Y COVER AND THIS PAGE ATIBA JEFFERSON
ROOKIES COVER NATHANIEL S. BUTLER
 FOOT LOCKER’S
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 #212 NOV/DEC 2017

Front Court
12 . T R A S H TA L K
As usual, our readers don’t
hold their tongues.

15. HYPE
The NBA is back, Action
Bronson loves Shaq and
we hope Isaiah’s recovery
is on track. Plus Brittney
Sykes, Richard Sherman,
Chris Webber, Crossover
Academy and more.

26.
S L A M A DA M O N T H
The Celtics’ Jaylen Brown
made his presence known at
this year’s Summer League.

Back Court
72. KICKS
New player sigs in the
house!

74 . K I C K S E X T R A
The Under Armour Curry 4
is Stephen’s best shoe
yet and LaMelo Ball has
officially, if unexpectedly,
arrived.

76. PUNKS
RJ Barrett is repping for
The North, Zion’s latest
diary entry, and an intro
to Gerald Liddell, Javonte
Smart, EJ Montgomery and
Andrea Aquino.

80. FROZEN
MOMENT
They see pictures, they say
goals…

MICHAEL PORTER JR,

PG. 58

8 SL AMONLINE.COM PORTER COVER AND THIS PAGE JONATHAN ZIZZO

 R YOUNG
FO
ONLY

YOUR GAME
STARTS HERE.

THE AND1 CHAOS AVAILABLE AT

The Sixth Man
H
ere’s the only thing I know for sure
about our new covers: they’re either
going to age really well, or they’re
going to age terribly. You can say
that for every cover featuring a high school,
college or very young NBA player, so this is
no big pronouncement. But it’s true, and it’s
exciting—and in my mind, it makes it worth it.
You might’ve noticed this happening more
often than not as of late. Over the past few
months, we’ve put both prep sensation Zion
Williamson and the three Ball brothers (one
high schooler, one college kid, one NBA rookie-
to-be) on our cover. And now we’ve got two
new covers with college freshmen—Michael
Porter Jr and Marvin Bagley III—and one with a
whole slew of electrifying first-year pros.
As SLAM has undergone an ownership
transition this summer—word to the new
masthead you see on the right side of this
page—there’s been a lot of talk in the office
about SLAM’s place within the complicated
industry we inhabit. Where and how it fits in,
and why it has a purpose. I think it goes with-
out saying that we are here to cover the hell
out of basketball and the incredible culture
the sport lives in, but as for what makes us
especially distinctive in this ever-crowded
media landscape, I’d argue that it’s our
ability to cover basketball players during or
immediately after everyone in the basketball
world—real hoopheads, to use a terrible
phrase I promise to never use again—learns
about them, and immediately before every-
one outside of the basketball world learns
about them. Which is to say: We help players
blow up. And we do so better than anyone
else—that much I know for sure.
OFF THE BENCH
Shea Serrano is a New York Times bestselling author and staff writer for
The Ringer. His last book, The Rap Year Book, has been translated into
several different languages and is now being adapted into a documentary
for AMC, set to air in the fall of 2019. Catch an excerpt of his new book,
Basketball (and Other Things), on pg. 66.
10 SL AMONLINE.COM
2017 VOL.24 NO.9
PUBLISHER
Dennis S. Page
EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER
David Schnur
HEAD OF CONTENT/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Adam Figman
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Alexis Cook
EDITORIAL
MANAGING EDITOR
Susan Price Thomas
SENIOR EDITORS
Ryne Nelson, Peter Walsh
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Franklyn Calle, Max Resetar
NEWS EDITOR
Marcel Mutoni
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS
Rajah Allarey, Habeeba Husain
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Ryan Jones, Tzvi Twersky
BASKETBALL EVANGELIST
Rick Telander
SENIOR WRITERS
My favorite example of this isn’t even real. Russ Bengtson, Michael Bradley,
It’s a quick snapshot in the movie He Got Khalid Salaam, Leo Sepkowitz, Yaron Weitzman,
DeMarco Williams, Nima Zarrabi
Game when the screen cuts to an image of a CONTRIBUTORS
fake SLAM cover featuring fictional prospect David Cassilo, Ben Collins, Conrad Kaczmarek,
Drew Ruiz, Shea Serrano, Zion Williamson, Alex Wong
Jesus Shuttlesworth. Writer/director Spike Lee INTERN
needed an example of what “next” looked like Jihad Dennis
in basketball media, and he turned to SLAM. ART
Almost two decades later the creators of Sur- CONTRIBUTORS
vivor’s Remorse gave the same treatment to Cassy Athena, Nathaniel S. Butler,
Burn & Broad, Rob Hammer, Charlie Lindsay,
Cam Calloway, the STARZ show’s main charac- Atiba Jefferson, Arturo Torres, Ryan Young,
Zach Wolfe, Jonathan Zizzo
ter. The more things change, etc. etc. etc.
Which brings us back to Porter Jr and ADVERTISING
Bagley III. Both have been leading their ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
Michael Yaari
respective HS classes for a minute now, but MVP
following MBIII’s reclassification, they head Spiro Maroulis
into this NCAA season as the undeniable 1-2 For all advertising inquiries, email
advertising@slammediainc.com
in college hoops: MPJ at Missouri and Bagley
III at Duke. On our third cover, we’ve got the SLAM MEDIA INC.
guys we consider to be the six favorites to go CHAIRMAN Joe Samberg
down in history as the pieces that make up VICE CHAIRMAN Peter Robert Casey
CEO Dennis S. Page
what could go down as one of the best rook- COO David Schnur
ies classes in history, (potentially!) joining
’96 and ’03 in legendary status. Of course, Consumer Marketing, Enthusiast Media
Subscription Company Inc.
we can’t promise that’ll happen. We can only SVP, CIRCULATION Tom Slater
guarantee that at this exact moment, with an VP, RETENTION & OPERATIONS FULFILLMENT
Donald T. Robinson III
impressive array of accomplishments already To carry SLAM in your store: 800.381.1288
behind them and god only knows what kinds
SUBSCRIBER CUSTOMER SERVICE
of amazing feats still to come, there’s no
For US: slam@emailcustomerservice.com
better way to proclaim they’ve got next. or 800.333.6411
International: 386.447.6383 or write to SLAM, P.O. Box
420235, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0235. Please include
Peace, name, address and phone number on any inquiries.
Canada Post: Return undeliverable Canadian
addresses to IMEX Global Solutions, P.O. Box 25542,
London, ON N6C 6B2.
BACK ISSUES
To order back issues, visit
https://www.circsource.com/store/storeBackIssues.html
Occasionally our subscriber list is made available to
reputable firms offering goods and services we believe
Adam Figman would be of interest to our readers. If you prefer to be
excluded, please email your current address and a note
requesting to be excluded from these promotions to
SLAM Media Inc. at info@slammediainc.com.
Write to SLAM: trashtalk@slammediainc.com
For general inquiries, email
info@slammediainc.com
Printed in U.S.A.
Copyright © 2017 by
SLAM Media Inc.
All rights reserved.
 GET THE

IN THE
GAME

BRING THE GAME HOME OFFICIAL NBA LICENSED SEATS

S P E C S E A T S H O P. C O M • 8 0 0 . 5 3 5 . 2 0 4 8
 Trash Talk
Grand Champs
First off, I like to pay homage where homage is due. For the fresh
off the grill (hot) issue after issue. My favorite by far is 211 with
Chef Curry and KD on the cover. I will admit they put the League
on a spoon (eat, eat) with that record-setting 73 wins.
When I watch the game I put them CL-20 on and jump in the sky-
box, meaning the top rock, I’m at the game. All I can tell you guys
is to hold on to Issue 211, it’s gone be worth something because
it’s most definitely a piece of history. You
got the 2017 Draft, you got the “Whole
New Ballgame” and you got “Tomorrow
’Til Infinity.” Big ups to the editorial work,
fine job.
Lastly, I’d like to thank SLAM. When I
pick up the world’s greatest mag, I’m not
here at WKCC until they say five minutes
to count and that’s when I know it’s real.
Homage paid.
Undra Roddy, Fredonia, KY
12 SL AMONLINE.COM
I loved Sam Rubenstein’s blurb about
Bradley Beal. To me, he is a superstar.
I think he will have a breakout 2017-
2018 season. In my opinion he should
be a first time NBA All-Star this year.
Hopefully the Wizards will make a
huge playoff run and maybe make it
to the finals, but I’ll still be rooting for
LeBron and the Cavs if that happens.
Luke Gaymon, age 11, Marlton, NJ
Big Bradley Beal fans over here,
too.—Ed.
What’s up SLAM? I think my team the
Milwaukee Bucks are going to be a
lot better than people think this year.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is going to
be this year’s MVP and he can’t stop
SLAMming. This year the Greek Freak
means business and he’s got blooming
players like Thon Maker and the ROY
to back him up. Don’t forget about
Jabari or Kris either. The point is, the
Bucks are on the rise and they are led
by 22-year-old Antetokounmpo. Watch
out, Cleveland, we’re coming. Golden
State, we’ll see ya in the Finals. And
Curry, we’ll see ya in a poster laying on
the ground with Giannis flying over ya.
Kase Andrews, Evansville, WI
KD looks like a championship trophy on
the left and the NBA logo on the right
(on the first page of your Unbeatable
issue)… Just sayin’. I am a first time
writer screamin’ hoop or die and salute
this Basketball Bible. I’m bleeding my
pen on my last sheet of paper in a TX
penitentiary prayin’ I see my trash talk
in your trash talk next month. I’ve never
wrote to a magazine before but with so
much shit going on around the League
right now I had no choice.
Right now Kyrie is in the middle of
trying to divorce Cleveland but I bet
that doesn’t stop LeBron’s dancing
Snapchat snaps. Haha! The King is
 SLAMONLINE.COM
the King and we gotta respect it. Another
thing, I’m sick of people dry hatin’ on La-
Var Ball. He is a mad scientist that created
three parking lot shootin’ Frankensteins.
You don’t like it, make three of your own
and show us how it’s supposed to be done.
Not a month after KD won his first
S
UR PIC ring and Finals MVP, guess what I did? I
TAG YO inked a 13-inch full body tat of Mr. Trey
M
#MYSLA 5 doing a fallback jumper along with a
big purple Nike check and his logo on
my rib cage. I just wish I could send y’all
a picture, it’s too official. I know KD has
been gettin’ his fair share of ink of people
that inspire him, so I know he knows
I N S TA G R A M O F where I’m coming from. My time flies
THE MONTH when I watch this man play. I honestly
don’t know if I could’ve made it this far
@kingjames mentally without his lethal scoring and
Real Ones Never Change! vigilance. 2016-17 season was a test
My Gs. #Stay Melo that no one could’ve taken and passed
#WhyNot flawlessly. I had to get this kid on me and
#StriveForGreatness I hope I was the first to do it.
I’m going to be out in a couple years
and I’ma send y’all a pic of my Slim
Reaper ink. SLAM, this basketball shit is a
movement and you can’t be a part of it if
you ain’t makin’ moves.
Darrell Brown aka DToxx, Dilley, TX
We NEED that pic!!!—Ed.
What it b-like, SLAM homies! First thing’s
first, I love the magazine. I just wish the
Spurs had more love coming from y’all.
TWEET OF
Check this out though. I’m in my cell read-
THE MONTH ing this “Tomorrow ’Til Infinity” crap! And
@CJMcCollum it’s saying the Spurs can at least theoret-
ically try to improve enough to challenge
We need to the Dubs’ dominance. Is this guy for real?
start ranking I know y’all watched Game 1 of the West
Finals. KD was shut down by the Klaw!
these weak ass Not to mention TP9 wasn’t even playing.
journalist. With We had a 23-point lead in the Bay! Yes, the
Spurs lost but only because the Klaw got
descriptions of hurt. I think all basketball heads would
their strengths, agree. Now I’m not saying it was in stone
that the Spurs would’ve won the West but
weaknesses and I’m not saying they would’ve lost.
ability to make For Ryan Jones to say that the Spurs
up “sources” have to improve to beat the Dubs is insane!
The Klaw is good for 26-30 a game, TP9
is good 11-15 a game. What’s the most the
SEND LETTERS TO: Dubs’ beat the Spurs by without the Klaw?
TRASH TALK, C/O SLAM 261 TP9? Thank you. And I can almost put my
MADISON AVENUE, 6TH FLOOR, life on it KD wouldn’t have went off like
NY, NY, 10016 he did against the Spurs if the Klaw was
playing. GSW had full strength, the Spurs
MESSAGE US ON FACEBOOK
didn’t. As of now Golden State the champs.
OR EMAIL US AT:
TRASHTALK@ See ‘em next year! Spurs Nation stand up!
SLAMMEDIAINC.COM Roderick “Lil Rod” Lighteard,
(WE MAY EDIT LETTERS TO FIT.) Tone City, TX
@SLAMonline SLAMmagazine
THANK YOU SLAM NATION!!! You showed
me luv last year with the crayon displayed
portrait I submitted of AI in the Drake
Toronto Issue. My entry this year is yet
another gift to SLAM and its fans who are
both greatly appreciated…but also, to dish
out a particularly well needed lesson of
art etiquette and let it be known that we’re
all students constantly learning no matter
what platform!!! I applaud a person of
confidence and talent, but there’s never a
need for conceited words no matter how
hilarious they may sound. Someone said
“buss yo pen” and I did. T. Crawford aka
the Black Picasso of the Bronx…There’s no
need for an art contest challenge yourself
by respecting the pen and progressing. It’ll
work out better for you that way. However,
if life’s talents are all about just “Trash
Talking” then win all by yourself.
Going uhhhh yeah that way <<< and
watch the world go this way >>>.
Timothy “Timor” Morgan,
Green Bay, WI
I’m writing this with the most humblest of
hearts hoping that I can somehow get Den-
nis Page, Adam Figman and Alexis Cook to
understand my perspective. For years, I’ve
been waiting, hoping to see another female
on the cover of SLAM. Maybe Maya Moore,
Elena Delle Donne and Candace Parker
on one cover! With the title saying “Ladies
First!” (Wheewwww that’s sic!) Of all the
SLAMs that I have, I’m most proud to own
the 1998 issue with Chamique Holdsclaw.
When I first saw that cover, it was over!
I already knew what it was….it was bold,
unique and most of all, shocking. Who in
the hell was this magazine cocky enough
to put a young woman on the cover rocking
a Knicks uni? I was mesmerized and forev-
er under the SLAM trance!
Lashawn McMullen, Brooklyn, NY
SL AMONLINE.COM 13
SLAM PRESENTS LEBRON
C O M I N G N O V E M B E R
ANDREW D. BERNSTEIN/NBA VIA GETTY IMAGES

B
RING IT ON!

THE OPENING TIP I am so ready, and I know you are too, or you
wouldn’t be here in the midst of SLAM 212,
getting your fix of glorious hoops after a long
A LWAYS BY R I CK T EL A NDER summer of baseball, golf, tennis and whatever
else the world throws at us to fill the time between what
really matters—basketball.
The big NBA opening day comes a week earlier than
usual this season, with a double-header on October 17
on TNT, featuring the Celtics playing the Cavaliers in the

SL AMONLINE.COM 15
 N O Y Z » “SLAM 2.0,” which is how those of us in the office jokingly referred to the seemingly
ever-distant days of new SLAM ownership, has actually arrived. Let’s get it...Which is to say: If
you’re a talented, basketball-obsessed videographer, holler at us...The Kyrie/IT trade is one of
our favorite basketball swaps in a minute. No reason why either team wouldn’t do that deal...

first game and the Rockets playing PICTURE ME BALLIN’

the defending NBA champion War-
riors in the second. Put your chair
on full-recline, load up the chip
bowl and watch so many stars
from last season that you might
hallucinate and believe you’ve
been sent directly to hoop heaven.
LeBron James, Stephen Curry,
Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson,
James Harden—all there for your
love. You even get stars like Gordon
Hayward (now a Celtic), Chris Paul
(now a Rocket), Draymond Green,
Kevin Love, and the intriguing
(finished? reborn?) point guard and
one-time league MVP Derrick Rose,
playing with the Cavs.
“PUT YOUR
CHAIR ON FULL-
RECLINE, LOAD
PICTUR
ROKAS GUSTYS, HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY
Hailing from Lithuania, Rokas Gustys is fulfilling his
childhood dream of playing basketball in America. At
6-9, 260, Gustys has a motor that every college coach
wishes his big man possessed and a knack to corral
rebounds every time he crashes the glass. He posted 22
double-doubles (11 consecutive to end the year) during
his sophomore year and earned All-CAA Championship honors after grabbing a
tournament-record 23 rebounds. As a junior, he averaged 12 boards a game for
the Pride, good enough to rank top five in the nation. This season, he looks to sit
atop the rebounders list once again.
CHANNON FLUKER, CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE
CH
Pulll up stats from Channon Fluker’s first two seasons
and
d it’s obvious the Pasadena, CA, native is destined for
g eatness. In 2015-16, she was named Big West Fresh-
gre
man of the Year and earned First Team All-Big West,
making her the first freshman recipient since 2002 to
win both accolades. The following season, she set school

UP THE CHIP
records for points (577), rebounds (383) and field goals
(242) while averaging 18 points and 12 rebounds. She had a career-high 39 points
BOWL, YOU’VE against Hawaii before being named Big West Player of the Year and was invited to
BEEN SENT TO the USA Women’s Basketball U23 Camp in August. —Drew Ruiz
HOOP HEAVEN.”
Most interesting of all is that #BARS
star point guards Kyrie Irving
and Isaiah Thomas have done a
musical chairs thing and switched
teams—Irving to the Celtics and
Thomas to the Cavs. While IT
likely won’t suit up on opening

G U S T Y S : M I C H A E L R E AV E S / G E T T Y I M A G E S ; F L U K E R : C S U N AT H L E T I C S
night due to his barking hip, there
should be a little snippiness
between Kyrie and LeBron since
Irving wants to be a supernova
away from Bron’s blinding light.
And that’s only Day 1!
Christmas—hey, remember
Santa and snow?—is now owned
by the NBA. (Payments went
to the North Pole and Charles
Barkley.) There are five televised
games in succession on Christ-
mas Day, and anyone who watch-
es every minute of every game
gets a free gallon of eggnog from
Adam Silver but must send all
those unopened presents (no time
to unwrap!) to the Clippers front
office in case one turns out to be a
pass to the deep playoffs.
It’s basketball time, kids.
Amen.

16 SL AMONLINE.COM ILLUSTR ATION BURN & BROAD

 with the most basic of dribbling
drills and eventually reach-
ing the point where Shaun is
excitedly explaining the concept
of a pin-down screen to free a
teammate for an open shot.
At the end of the camp,
Crossover presents each
student with a certificate and
a basketball to take home and
offers them a challenge: If you
wear that ball out and if you go
to school every day, you’ll get
a new ball next year. While we
debate the merit of participa-
INTERNATIONAL tion trophies in American youth
sports today, we often take the

WORLD RUNNERS
mere opportunity to participate
for granted. These students
don’t have many after-school
India’s CROSSOVER ACADEMY is providing kids activities, but the fact that
with life lessons through the sport of basketball. there’s no established culture
of basketball in India plays

S
haun Jayachandran
started with a mod-
est and open-ended
objective: get kids to
play sports and stay in school.
As basketball continued to
grow as a global sport, he
looked at the landscape and
wanted to get involved. “I
started thinking about how
I could combine my work in
education with coaching and
having a family history in India
to build something that would
be impactful,” he recalls. From
that kernel of an idea, the
Crossover Academy was born.
In 2012, Shaun took two vol-
ROB HAMMER
unteers to India to run the pilot
program with 45 students. Now
in his sixth summer, Shaun
rolls with 14 volunteers who
come to southeastern India for
two weeks in the middle of the
summer to teach basketball
to over 300 children from
marginalized communities and
provide them with hope for a
better future.
There’s an immense chal-
lenge in establishing funda-
mentals for a sport with which
these kids are only barely fa-
miliar. But training elite players
or finding India’s version of Yao
Ming is not why they’re here.
Instead, Shaun and his coaches
are intent on instilling the five
pillars on which the Crossover
Academy is based: leader-
ship, gender equity, character,
teamwork and communication.
“Basketball is our vehicle of
change,” Shaun likes to say.
Throughout the after-school
program, students rotate
through four 30-minute ses-
sions: basketball skills, condi-
tioning, yoga and a classroom
session focused on establishing
those core pillars. Over the
course of just two weeks, the
students rapidly progress in
their basketball skills, starting
into the hands of Crossover,
which insists on operating with
an even number of male and
female students. “I wanted a
sport where the boys weren’t
light-years ahead of the girls at
the starting point and therefore
they couldn’t automatically ex-
clude the girls from playing by
saying you’re not good enough,”
Shaun says.
Shilpa Tummala, one of
Crossover’s coaches, works
with a group of 40 girls, urging
them to get in a defensive
stance, slap the ground, and
yell “defense!” on her cue. The
students haven’t encountered
a role model like Shilpa, who
just finished earning a degree
in neurobiology while playing
Division I basketball at Harvard.
Shilpa connects by teaching
them a simple call and re-
sponse. “What is a leader?” she
prompts. To which the group of
40 young girls responds with “a
strong woman!” as they shout
and flex in unison. It’s not hard
to see how a moment like this
will have a lasting impact on
a young girl who has dreams
of striving for more than the
seemingly preordained blue-
print that the circumstances
of her birth have laid out for

her. At the Crossover Acade-

my, they’re just hoping those
moments begin to snowball.
—Conrad Kaczmarek

S L A M O N L I N E . C O M 17

THROWBACK
ONE AND DONE
CHRIS WEBBER didn’t last long in Oakland, but he made his
presence felt with an impressive rookie year and a memorable
dunk over Charles Barkley.
L
ooking back, that
single season in
Oakland seems
almost like a dream.
Yes, Chris Webber was once
a Golden State Warrior. Draft-
ed No. 1 overall by the Orlando
Magic in 1993, C-Webb was
swapped immediately for No. 3
pick Penny Hardaway in what
remains one of the wildest
draft-day deals in NBA history.
At the time, it seemed like
a trade that might alter the
balance of power in the league,
turning both the Disney-based
expansion franchise and the
18 SL AMONLINE.COM
N O Y Z » The LeBron 15s are dope, and shockingly more fashion-inspired than most shoes
in his line. Curious to see how companies will continue adapting to the lifestyle sneaker
takeover, but this is a fresh step in that direction...Now we need to see the Harden Vol. 2s...You
should be subscribed to our “Respect the Game” pod on iTunes by now. If you’re not, get on it...
perennial Cali also-rans into
contenders. And it did work
out that way for Penny and the
Magic, for a while at least. For
Webber and the Dubs, it simply
wasn’t meant to be.
Still, that one season was
one to remember.
The buzz surrounding
Mayce Edward Christopher
Webber III on his NBA arrival
had its roots in a dazzling
two-year run at Michigan,
where he and his Fab Five
teammates had done nothing
less than revolutionize the
college game. That buzz—not
to mention incredible expecta-
tions—followed Webber to the
League. He did not disappoint.
His rookie year numbers
are impressive in their own
right: 17.5 points on 55 percent
shooting, 9.1 rebounds, and
better than 2 blocks and a steal
per game. If the NBA in 2017
is all about versatile big-men—
those coveted unicorns—
Webber was the prototype
before there was a prototype:
Fast, strong, athletic and versa-
tile, a nightmare on both ends.
He posted his first 20-point
game against Phoenix just a
week into the season, and his
first double-double two days
later. In that first month alone,
he had a 14-point, 18-rebound,
5-block game against Seattle,
a 24-16-4 line against the Heat,
and a 26-point outing in a win
over the Pacers.
But as a former Fab Fiver,
Webber’s impact was always
going to be about style as well
as substance. And so we go
back to that night in Phoenix,
just four games and one short
week into his NBA career. Rock-
ing the Warriors’ clean, classic
home whites, he matched up
with defending MVP Charles
Barkley, looking for an oppor-
tunity to announce he’d arrived.
He helped create the chance
himself, forcing a turnover on
D and running out on the break,
where Latrell Sprewell found
him flying upcourt. Webber had
a step on Barkley, but Chuck
had the angle. Or at least, he
thought he did.
You know the rest (and if
you don’t, go to YouTube now):
In full stride, Webber put the
ball behind his back before
rising up and over Barkley’s
two-handed challenge.
Right-handed flush, and one.
Given the context, it remains
one of the most memorable
dunks in NBA history.
Alas, it was a fleeting
moment in a too-short tenure
in Oakland. Webber would
be gone at season’s end, and
T IM D EF R I S C O/ N B A E V I A GE T T Y IM AGE S
he’d spend his best years in
Sacramento, eventually turn-
ing a different also-ran NoCal
franchise into a contender. In
Oakland, at least, the dream
was never realized. But
nothing can diminish that brief,
memorable, oh-so-fresh debut
in the Bay. —Ryan Jones

DIMEDROP
BIRDS FLYIN’ HIGH
Lifelong Lakers fan and Seattle Seahawks cornerback
RICHARD SHERMAN is living the dream by working with Kobe
Bryant on BODYARMOR’s latest “Obsession Is Natural” campaign.
G
rowing up in Compton, CA,
Richard Sherman attended bas-
ketball powerhouse Dominguez
High School. While he made his
mark on the football field and the track
team, he paid close attention to the bas-
ketball world and is friends with plenty of
world-class hoopers—including Kobe, KD
and Russell Westbrook.
SLAM: What’s it like to be able to work
with Kobe?
RS: I grew up a Lakers fan and am still a
Lakers fan. It’s really cool and it’s a dream
come true for a kid from L.A. to work
with Kobe as a creative director for BODY-
ARMOR’s “Obsession Is Natural” campaign.
It’s about as good as it gets for me.
20 SL AMONLINE.COM
N O Y Z » According to the comments on our #SLAMTop50, Dion Waiters is the No. 1 player in
the NBA. We’re not mad. #BetOnYourselfThenDoubleDown...Between Victor Oladipo, Damian
Lillard, Lonzo Ball, Lou Williams, Lance Stephenson, Iman Shumpert, etc., we need a 2017
version of B-Ball’s Best Kept Secret ASAP...#Free8EyeMedia….#WOATTwitter is a movement...
SLAM: Tyson Chandler was a huge re-
cruit at Dominguez. Do you remember
the hype around him back then?
RS: I was actually one of the ball boys
when Tyson was there and he was making
his run and they were going to state cham-
pionships. I ran into him not too long ago at
The Players’ Tribune and he remembered
me being the ball boy. We had a good laugh
at that and how far we’ve come.
SLAM: Do you have a relationship with
any other current NBA players?
RS: Me and KD have a pretty cool rela-
tionship. Right now we got a pact to see
who can get their second ring first. Our
season starts and ends before his, so
hopefully I can get that done. When I was
in high school, the girl I was dating went to
Russell Westbrook’s high school so I used
to go up there all the time. We ended up
having a cool relationship—we’ve been in
contact since high school.
SLAM: Who are the best ballers on the
Seahawks?
RS: I’d say someone between Doug
[Baldwin], Kam [Chancellor], Earl
[Thomas] and Jimmy [Graham].
SLAM: Do you guys get together and
play during the offseason?
RS: We go up to L.A. Fitness and run all
the time. They’re pretty competitive. Most
of us as football players are defensive
stoppers, but we can get the ball in the
basket when we want to.
SLAM: There’s such a great basketball
community in Seattle. Do you think an
NBA team is ever going to come back
to the city?
RS: I would hope so. It’s unfortunate that
this fan base had to be punished for what
the owner did. It’s not like the fans weren’t
coming to the games. These fans are the
most incredible fans in sports and they
deserve a team.
SLAM: You made a comment during the
offseason that NFL players may have
to go on strike to get the contracts that
players deserve like the NBA did in
2011. Do you think the NBA’s bargain-
ing deal is the model that other leagues
should follow?
RS: I don’t know if it’s the model CBA, but
there are things in the NBA’s CBA that
they do well and there are things that we
do well. We really like the way they treat
their players. Obviously their league is
more of a players’ league than our league.
Our league is owners controlling and them
keeping the personalities of the players
pretty much suppressed. I think there are
things we can learn from the NBA and
MLB and how they got their deals done.
SLAM: Does “Obsession Is Natural”
accurately describe your approach to
football and life?
RS: It definitely does. It’s always been my
dream to be remembered in this game
and remembered as one of the all-time
greats, just like Kobe is in basketball. In
our game, with how violent it is, I don’t
think you can play 20 years, but I’ll do my
DOMINIC DISAIA
best. Everything I do, every bit of energy,
every thought is focused on some version
of me being better at football than I was
yesterday. —Peter Walsh
 Larry.
Magic.
Mike.
Kareem.
Clyde.
Charles.
Patrick.

Remember the time.

www.ebay.com/sportsmem
 N O Y Z » Ball in the Family is currently the best show on TV—and it’s not even on TV...One rea-
son we’re looking forward to spring 2018: The BBB Gelo 1 (actual shoe name TBD, of course)...
The Champions Basketball League looks like a complete scam, but we’ll rock our Gotham
Ballers gear regardless…“Mans not hot!”...LeBron followed @slamkicks. You should, too...

HOMEMADE

KEY
TO THE
STREETS
Atlanta Dream guard
BRITTNEY SYKES
grew up in hard-
nosed Newark, NJ,
and suffered two ACL
tears before earning
WNBA All-Rookie
honors last season.

SLAM: How were you

introduced to basketball?
BS: When I was younger, I used
to play with my cousins in my
grandparents’ backyard. I was
3, and the youngest of my
three cousins was 7. But I grew
up with them, and so I played
basketball.
SLAM: How would you
describe Newark ball?
BS: I think Newark ballers have
a toughness to them. When
people say that, you kind of
have to see it with respect be-
cause if you come from Newark
in any sport, you’ve got to beat
the best of the best. Everybody
sees Newark as a bad city. If
you’re a kid that makes it out
of Newark, it’s like, OK, you
worked hard for that. You did
what you needed to do.
SLAM: What was your
neighborhood like?
BS: It was good and bad. The
street I grew up on was pretty
good. The area around my
street could be described as
rough.
SLAM: Where did you play
the most growing up?
BS: I used to go to the Gatling
Center a lot when I was young-
er and growing up through
middle school. The Gatling
Center is actually in Irvington.
Irvington and Newark are right
sleep for months.
SLAM: Was it different the
second time around?
BS: When the second one hap-
pened, I broke down, honestly.
[Syracuse head coach Quentin
Hillsman] called me one day
and was like, “Listen, listen,
we’re going to figure this
out.” And we came up with
the idea, let’s talk to a sports
psychologist.

F R O M T O P : M I C H A EL H I C K E Y/GE T T Y I M AGE S ; R I C H B A R N E S /GE T T Y I M AGE S

next to each other. For about a
good 10 years, I would go ball
at the Gatling Center with my
friends and people that I went
to school with.
SLAM: How did tearing your
ACL twice during a
one-year stretch help
shape you into who you are
today?
BS: It was definitely a journey
where I found myself. I gained
a tougher mentality. I gained
a tougher skin. I never noticed
how much I took for granted
the little things. People laugh
at it, but not being able to walk
how I want to walk, it was
terrifying. And then I couldn’t
Syracuse offered a sports
psychologist, and to this day,
going on three years now,
I’ve been talking to my sports
psych. He honestly helped me
and saved my career, for sure.
I honestly look at anything
as easy because what I went
through was only something
that the person going through
it can understand. I look at it
as, Hey, you’ve been through
two tears. You can get through
this. It definitely changed me
for the better.
SLAM: Is there any fear that
it’s going to happen again?
BS: [Laughs] I don’t know what
that word is, man. —Ryne Nelson

22 SL AMONLINE.COM

THE OUTLET
BEST SERVED COLD
ISAIAH THOMAS and LEBRON JAMES are about to team
up for a revenge season the likes of which the basketball
world hasn’t seen since Michael Jordan’s prime.
A L W A Y S B Y B E N C O L L I N S
T
here’s this YouTube video that
recently dropped on my feed like
a grenade from Heaven called
“Michael Jordan—Top 10 Revenge
Plays.” It shows professional pains in the
ass like Bill Laimbeer pissing off MJ with
an elbow, or bench fodder saying the wrong
thing to him at the wrong time, before all 94
feet dissolves into Michael’s hurt.
This sort of magic comes straight from
pure, suppressed vengeance, spit out into
the greatest two-decade athletic achieve-
ment that ever happened. I watch it twice
a week now, often because there’s basic
heroism in going to the pharmacy these
days, playing house, pretending as if the
world isn’t on fire, and this is a pretty good
prescription. The video gets the blood
back into the limbs.
If Jordan turned every quip from a ball
boy into proof he needed to take over the
world, you can withstand tinpot fascism
long enough to get some toothpaste.
This is what’s going to happen to
LeBron James this year, and maybe
24 SL AMONLINE.COM
N O Y Z » The sneaker colorways in this year’s WNBA playoffs have been next level...
Every Spencer Dinwiddie office visit (and SLAM podcast) is fun... SLAM Dome 3.0 on deck.
Cover wall back?…Rollie Massimino...Jim McDaniels...Jud Heathcote...Adam Wojcik...Tommy
Hawkins...Zach Hollywood...Ozzie Silna...Criss Freeman...Jerry Lewis...Dick Gregory...
Isaiah Thomas, too, if he has two working
hips. The NBA’s third leading scorer last
year is now being referred to as a trade
throw-in. His new teammate has been to
seven straight NBA Finals, but was told all
summer he is somehow the problem.
I talked with Alan Siegel, who spent
a bunch of time last summer with Isaiah
for Boston Magazine, presuming he’d be
in Boston forever. He was there for seven
more months. Betrayal.
I asked him: This is going to be a re-
venge season, right?
“Totally,” Alan said. He then said a
bunch of other basketball minutiae things
you’d agree with (LeBron! Spacing! Isaiah
is secretly good off the ball!), but I’ll save
it, because here’s a quote Isaiah told Alan
for that story.
“I’m just like, ‘Stay paranoid’ because I
don’t know what’s going to happen next,”
he said. “I’ve never been given anything.”
In short, pun entirely intended, the
man’s life is a revenge game. Now some-
one just put him and the best basketball
YOU’RE GOING
TO SEE THE
RIGHTEOUSNESS
DRESSED
UP IN FURY.
IT’S GOING
TO BE
AWESOME.
player alive on a rocketship to the NBA
Finals, and told them both they weren’t
good enough.
You’re going to see the righteous-
ness dressed up in fury. It’s going to be
awesome.
There’s plenty of revisionism going
on now in Boston about how Isaiah’s
abandonment was necessary, about how
you shoot the deer under your tires on the
highway. You have places to be.
But do not get it mixed up: It is a coping
mechanism. At this point, the driver is
simply willy-nilly about deer and he seems
F R O M L EF T: A DA M GL A N Z M A N /GE T T Y IM AGE S ; N AT H A N IEL S . B U T L ER / N B A E V I A GE T T Y IM AGE S
to like venison.
Eventually, you start rooting for the deer.
This is understandably a complicat-
ed time to root for someone who runs
strictly on the premise of getting even with
anyone who has ever slighted him, since
one of those people is running the country
right now and biting off sizable chunks
of its soul in the process. We see the
consequences when it’s channeled into
hatred, to pick on those who can’t defend
themselves.
But that’s revenge as distraction, ex-
tracting vengeance on the weak just to do
it. It is getting back at a slumlord dad and
The New York Times, and it is always using
the poor and oppressed as a tool to do it.
Don’t confuse that cruelty with a moral,
honest revenge season.
Remember: Michael Jordan did not
punch the ball boy. He took over the world.
Isaiah and LeBron now have plenty
of ball boys worth punching. I’m looking
forward to the YouTube montage.
 hen the season
opens in
October, nearly
everything will
be different for
the Boston Celtics team
that advanced to the
W

26 SL AMONLINE.COM
Eastern Conference Finals.
This isn’t how it usually
goes with a conference
finalist—teams who get
that close tend to bring
everyone back and try
again—but Danny Ainge
generally has not been one
to do things the usual way.
Of the five starters in
their final game of last
season, just two remain:
Al Horford and Marcus
Smart. Avery Bradley is a
Piston, Kelly Olynyk is on
the Heat, and Jae Crowder
is a Cavalier. So is All-Star
guard Isaiah Thomas, who
missed that game with a
hip injury that will keep
him out for the beginning of
this season as well. Many
of the bench guys are gone,
too. Jaylen Brown, though.
Oh, he’ll be back, doing—
well, things like this. After
all, we did say “nearly
everything.”
—Russ Bengtson

ETHAN MILLER/GETTY IMAGES

 JULY 9, 2017
JAYLEN BROWN on JOSH SCOTT

SL AMONLINE.COM 27
THOMAS & MACK CENTER
LAS VEGAS, NV
SLAMADAMONTH
 ME WE CAUGHT UP WITH
DAMIAN LILLARD AKA DAME
D.O.L.L.A. TO TALK ABOUT HIS MUSIC,
HIS FAVORITE RAPPERS,
THE #4BARFRIDAY
COMMUNITY AND
JBL FEST.

B Y D R E W R U I Z

28 SL AMONLINE.COM
W
HEN DAMIAN LILLARD
announced that he was releasing
a full-length studio album, many
basketball and hip-hop fans didn’t
know how to react. Although this
isn’t the first time an NBA athlete
has tried to pursue rap on the side,
many tend to be skeptical when
pros try to take on another career—especially music. There’s no
denying that rappers want to be NBA players and vice versa, but
very few—OK, none—have been as successful in the booth as
they are on the court.
Before the start of the 2016-17 NBA season, Lillard, whose
stage name is Dame D.O.L.L.A., an acronym that stands for
“Different On Levels The Lord Allows,” dropped The Letter O,
a 12-track album with features from Jamie Foxx, Lil Wayne
and Juvenile. Long before the album, he released songs via his
SoundCloud account and bodied multiple freestyles on Sway
Calloway’s “Sway in the Morning” show, proving that his rap
career isn’t just some kind of fad.
Since the release of his album, Lillard has performed on stage
across different venues in Portland and has gotten praise for his
passion in music from fans and NBA players both young
and old. He also launched his record label,
Front Page Music, to give up-and-coming
rappers an opportunity to break into the
music industry.
Last month, Lillard performed in front of
the invite-only crowd at JBL Fest, a three-
day music and entertainment festival that
took place at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las
Vegas. We caught up with Dame before he hit
the stage to talk his rap career, storytelling
through music, who he’d like to work with in
the future, #4BarFriday and more.
30 SL AMONLINE.COM
SLAM: What’s the music process like for you?
Damian Lillard: The music process for me is pretty simple. Any-
time I’m a part of something, I’m just living and seeing things. I go
to a lot of places and visit a lot of cities, so I make what I want of it.
Usually I take a lot of notes and I’m always writing stuff because
I might want to come back to it. It might be something I want to
remember. And I listen to beats a lot when I’m on the plane, during
the season on road trips, [and] when we get a day off in the hotel
room. I’m always having that in mind. Then I’m rapping to myself,
recording it on my phone over and over, getting the flow down,
adding bars to it and then I go to the studio and record it.
SLAM: Is your routine any different than the way you ap-
proach basketball?
DL: Not really. With basketball—even on a game day—it’s on the
fly. I don’t have a set lunchtime. Some days I take a nap; some
days I won’t take a nap. It’s the same with music. I get up on
Tuesday, work out and if I’m not doing something, I’ll call the
studio if I want to come record. I go there sometimes with stuff I
P R E V I O U S S P R E A D A N D T HI S PAG E : A B E G IN S B ER G/G E T T Y IM AG E S
have to record. Other times I’ll go listen to beats, and it’ll make
me feel some kind of way and then I’ll end up recording some-
F O R J B L ; R I G H T: T H E A R O N W. H E N D E R S O N /G E T T Y I M AGE S
thing to that specific beat. It’s never a schedule or planned out
real well. It was different with my first album, though. That was
planned out. I knew what I wanted to get done and that was that.
SLAM: Performing on the court seems
to come naturally for you. Is it different
being behind the mic?
DL: I wouldn’t say I’m nervous, but I’ve had
moments where I’m curious where things
should be done, which way I should go or
how I should go about doing certain things
as an artist. For me, it’s kind of fun because
in basketball, I’ve reached a high level as
an athlete. But as an artist, there’s a lot of
things I can learn. So I have a lot of things I
can learn from people I deal with in music
like Brookfield Duece and Danny From Sobrante—two of my artists
from my record label—that have been doing music for 15 years. It’s
kind of like I’m in the learning position again the same way I was
as an athlete where I had to be humble enough to listen to people
and allow people to coach me up and say, “You shouldn’t do this,
you should do it like this. And when this happens, you’re supposed
to handle it like this.” I’m learning how to become a better artist
the same way I learned to become a better athlete.
SLAM: What was your favorite thing about recording The
Letter O?
DL: It was a fun process because it was something that I hadn’t
done before. I was working out in the morning getting that
out the way and from noon to midnight it was just listening to
beats, coming up with hooks and verses, and bouncing ideas off
songwriters and other artists. It was fun. It was different and
something that I’m looking forward to doing again.
SLAM: How does your upbringing and city play a part in
storytelling through your music?
DL: I’ve seen it done so many times. People talk about how rich
the history in Oakland is when they talk about point guards and
they do the same when they talk about music. It’s been done so
many times before that, so I’ve seen how it should be done. Com-
ing from that environment, I have so much to tell for myself. It’s a
thing that you pick up. Everybody raps—even the people who don’t
pursue a career in rap, they rap. I got a song on The Letter O
called “Growth Spurt” where the person that was rapping with
me was my friend. He’s not a rapper, but he has a job and he can
rap. It’s just what I come from, so it’s natural.
FOR ME, I’M A FAN
OF BARS. I LIKE MUSIC
WITH A MESSAGE
AND STORYTELLING.”
SLAM: You’ve already worked with some big names, but
who’s someone you’d like to work with?
DL: In the future, I would like to work with more artists that I’m
a fan of. A lot of the artists I work with I’m a huge fan of, so going
forward that’s who I want to work with. I had Lil Wayne, Juvenile,
Jamie Foxx on there. It’s the artists I listen to on my own time—
Kendrick Lamar, Chance the Rapper, Nas, J. Cole.
SLAM: Both you and Kanye are adidas guys. Has there been
any talks about you two working on a track?
DL: Definitely. I think with us both doing music and him obviously
being who he is and also being with adidas and having a shoe
line, I think it’d be a cold collaboration if we did music together
and a shoe together. That’ll be real cool to do.
SLAM: Your #4BarFriday contest has really taken off over
the last four years. What’s it been like to see all the un-
der-the-radar talent on there?
DL: It’s been crazy just because you see all these people that
can really rap. They spend a lot of time and are fully invested in
rap careers and might not get the break that they’re looking for,
or be on a platform that’s going to give them that opportunity
or ultimately accomplish what they’ve set out to do. It makes
me happy that I can give them that platform to a certain extent.
It’s also humbling because I understand that if I wasn’t an NBA
player, it’d be super hard for me to put out music the way I have.
It makes me respect these artists even more.
SLAM: Who are your favorite rappers ever?
DL: I’d have to say 2Pac, he’s my favorite rapper of all time.
Biggie, Andre 3000, Lil Wayne, Nas, Eminem and Jay-Z.
SLAM: You’ve performed on stage before, but what do you
think it will be like to perform at a festival like JBL Fest?
DL: I think it’s probably going to be a different crowd than I
usually get in front of, which I think is cool. People will respect
the music, the story and also the fact that I’m an athlete and
really diving into something else that I really care about. And I’ve
also done a lot of performances in Portland. I’ve been in front of a
crowd that loves who I am as an athlete, so it will be fun to get in
front of other people and allow them to hear my music that they
might not have heard. It’ll be pretty cool.
SLAM: The partnership has been going for two years and
they’ve been involved both on- and off-court. What’s it been
like being a JBL ambassador?
DL: It’s great and it’s really obvious. Listening to music is a way
for me to block everything out. And also, me being an athlete
that’s so heavily involved in music, having a speaker—a high-
quality speaker—it goes hand in hand. It only makes sense for me
to represent that and be a part of that. S
SL AMONLINE.COM 31
NBA
NBA
P R E V I E W
 Quickness and hops aside, Smith Jr’s
early ROY candidacy can be traced back to
his playmaking, defense and elite com-
petitiveness. He’s a killer on-court, jetting

YOUNG AND
around the floor, looking for any advantage.
Whether on offense or defense, he’s running
all 94 feet, doing everything possible to win.
The 19-year-old from Fayetteville, NC,
has already linked up with J. Cole, another

GETTIN’ IT
‘Ville product, getting the seal of approval
from one of music’s biggest names. That
right there would be enough for a cover
spot, as far as we’re concerned.
Former Kansas Jayhawk Josh Jackson’s
potential rests in his versatility. At 6-8 with
THE NEW CROP OF ROOKS HAS BEEN long arms and a mix of agility and power,
B L ES S E D W I T H O T H E R W O R L D LY Jackson has the potential to be one of the
TA L E N T A N D D O P E P E R S O N A L I T I ES . best two-way players in the NBA. He’s a
locomotive when he’s going to the rim and
G E T R E A DY FO R T H E TA K EO V E R . he’s already a dangerous shot-blocker. He
can reject shots from anywhere, trailing in
W O R D S M A X R E S E T A R transition or coming from the weak side.
De’Aaron Fox is another rook who’s
P O R T R A I T N A T H A N I E L S . B U T L E R out there to cause havoc on D. His social
media handle is “swipathefox,” a nod to his
love for stealing the ball from unassuming
dribblers. Fox is fast, and as simple as that
he rookies had been Parker, Joel Embiid and the rest of the ’14 might sound, he can go into hyperspeed
moving all morning: rooks will fare in their careers, but early when he gets his paws on the ball.

T front and center at the

annual Panini Rookie
Photo Shoot at the
Knicks’ practice facility
in Tarrytown, NY, doing interviews, taking
pictures, signing autographs, making funny
social media videos. The day was dragging
on but they never seemed to get tired.
And when we grabbed Markelle Fultz,
Lonzo Ball, Jayson Tatum, Josh Jackson,
De’Aaron Fox and Dennis Smith Jr after
lunch for our shoot, they were ready. They
didn’t seem annoyed or bored or drained.
In fact, they couldn’t stop laughing at each
other and everyone around them.
It can be tough to remember that these
potential superstars, with millions of dol-
lars and followers, still can’t legally walk
into a bar. They’re just kids. They’re all so
damn good at basketball, so mature and
ready for the spotlight, that it doesn’t feel
like they were just in high school.
Fultz, Ball, Tatum, Jackson, Fox and
Smith Jr are, for lack of a better phrase,
cool as shit. They can hoop—more on that in
a moment—and they carry themselves with
the utmost confidence. Their personalities
are so different, too. They range from quiet
to comedic to talkative to boisterous. That’s
why we wanted to get them together.
Members of the ’96 and ’14 classes were
also featured as a crew on our cover. We
don’t know how Andrew Wiggins, Jabari
returns are promising. The guys from ’96?
Well, a few of them are Hall of Fame-bound.
So there’s pressure on this year’s crop.
We have high hopes.
The Sixers traded up to take Fultz, the
supremely confident 19-year-old from the
University of Washington, with the No. 1
pick. The 6-4 guard is a threat from pretty
much everywhere on the floor. His jumper
is pure and he’s big enough to brush off
smaller opponents on his way to the rack,
where he can finish over the top. He’s a
scary pick-and-roll ballhandler, capable of
dissecting the defense as he drives to the
rack and kicks to open shooters. And his
spin move is deadly.
The second pick in the draft was Lonzo
Ball. His story’s been well documented in
these very pages and he showed flashes
of his brilliant passing skills and ability
to lead a team on his way to winning
Summer League MVP. The ever-coy Zo
is fearless, just as self-assured as his
famous father. Ball’s been under a micro-
scope for about a year now and he’s using
all the hate to fuel what’s shaping up to be
a Rookie of the Year-qualifying campaign.
Standing in his way for the ROY could
be Dennis Smith Jr, the absurdly athletic
ninth overall pick. He bounces off the floor
so quickly that he’s drawing comparisons
to Russell Westbrook, Dwyane Wade and
Derrick Rose.
Off court, he’s smart and articulate,
unselfish and polite. On it, he’s a true floor
general, setting up his teammates at every
turn. Coming off one year at the University
of Kentucky, Fox can control the show
whether he’s in the middle of a fastbreak
or calling out plays in the halfcourt. He’s
not afraid to step up in the clutch, either.
The smoothest scorer in the Class of
’17 promises to be Jayson Tatum, out of
Duke. His midrange game is devastating,
his catch-and-shoot three-pointer is good
money and he can catch bodies at the rim.
He’s not a brash talker and he’s not out
there chirping recklessly to the media. He
lets his game do the talking.
He’ll have help from a reloaded Celtics
roster that will make his shooting numbers
extra cushy and allow him room to contin-
ue to grow his impressive offensive arsenal.
After years of playing with and against
each other at countless AAU and high
school showcases, and after spending
months together at pre-draft events, the
members of the Class of ’17 are friends
after all. They dap each other up, they
make fun of each other, they have inside
jokes. They laugh throughout most of our
cover shoot, light and carefree. Almost
like they aren’t aware of the expectations
that await them. Or maybe they’re just
that confident, that ready, that the weight
of the future doesn’t bother them. S

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P R E V I E W
Aww YEAH
T H E H I G H LY T O U T E D C L A S S O F 2 0 1 7 R O O K I E S A R E A B O U T T O H I T T H E C O U R T A N D
S H O W E V E RYO N E W H AT T H E Y ’ R E M A D E O F. B U T B E F O R E T H E Y E M B A R K O N T H E I R
CA R E E R S , M A R K E L L E F U LT Z , L O N Z O B A L L , JAYS O N TAT U M , J O S H JAC K S O N , D E ’A A R O N
F OX A N D D E N N I S S M I T H J R SAT D O W N W I T H S L A M F O R A L I T T L E B I T O F F U N .
B Y M A X
SLAM: What are you going to spend
your first NBA paycheck on?
? Jayson Tatum: A car. I gotta get a car.
Probably a Range Rover or a [Mercedes]
G Wagon.
Dennis Smith Jr: Probably get myself
a car. Probably a [Nissan] Maxima, something modest.
De’Aaron Fox: I don’t really have anything planned for the
first paycheck. I signed with Nike and have gotten some
money, so I went and bought another PS4. The first NBA
paycheck is just going to the bank.
Markelle Fultz: Vacation for my mom to Anguilla. It looks
nice. She said she enjoyed it.
Lonzo Ball: I don’t know yet. I’m gonna talk it over with
Pops, see if they want some. If not, then I gotta go out and
splurge real quick.
Josh Jackson: A little bit of it went to my mom, some
went to getting a house. Being an adult and living this life,
there’s just certain stuff that you just gotta buy already. I
haven’t really been able to have any fun with anything yet.
I’m just trying to get stuff that I actually need. I’m probably
looking for a dog. I really want a pet. That’ll probably be
the first thing I get. And man, my contract says I can’t, but
if I could ride motorcycles, I’d probably get one.
SLAM: What was your favorite cartoon growing up?
Tatum: SpongeBob.
Ball: SpongeBob.
Fultz: SpongeBob. It’s a classic.
Jackson: Dragon Ball Z.
Fox: Jimmy Neutron.
Smith Jr: Tom and Jerry. Either that or SpongeBob.
SLAM: You have a long road trip and you can only
pick one celebrity to ride shotgun. Who are you
taking?
Tatum: Drake. The playlist would be fire.
Smith Jr: J. Cole. That’s the only one I’m really, really
close with.
Fox: Kevin Hart. He’s gonna make that trip fun.
Ball: Future. We gonna be boomin’ the whole way up
there. No dull moments.
SLAM: If you were running for president, which
34 SL AMONLINE.COM
R E S E T A R
current NBA player would you pick as your VP?
Ball: Kyle Kuzma. He’s gonna make the world a better
place.
Jackson: I’m gonna choose JR Smith to be my vice
president. He’s kinda laid back and cool.
Tatum: LeBron James. He seems like the most powerful
person.
Fox: Chris Paul. He always knows what’s going on. Really
well spoken, holds himself to a higher standard.
SLAM: What’s the strangest thing you’ve been asked
to sign?
Tatum: A baby bib.
Fultz: I got asked to sign somebody’s underwear. They
were wearing ’em.
Jackson: The strangest thing I’ve ever been asked to
autograph was a kid. I did it. On his arm.
Ball: A pizza box. Someone had me sign a pizza box.
Fox: I signed someone’s dashboard, in their car, in
Kentucky.
SLAM: Which artist do you want to hop on a track
with?
Ball: One track, one artist? Future, man. He’s dope. That’s
a banger.
Fultz: Jay-Z. He’s just a legend. It’s gonna be fire.
Fox: Drake.
A L L B R I A N B A B IN E AU/G E T T Y IM AG ES E XC E P T F U LT Z : E L S A /G E T T Y IM AG ES
Smith Jr: J. Cole.
SLAM: What’s your most embarrassing moment on
the basketball court?
Tatum: I got dunked on my freshman year of high school,
in a playoff game. It was bad, too.
Fox: I got dunked on in practice by Kelly Oubre.
Fultz: I used to always trip up on my feet. I was dribbling
down the court, [looking for] the gamewinner, I tried and
fell and we lost the game.
Ball: My little brother made me fall on ESPN. That was
pretty bad.
SLAM: What’s your favorite pick-up line?
Tatum: I was watching Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Will
Smith was like, “I know your feet hurt because you’ve been
walking through my mind all day.”
Ball: All I say is, “What’s up?” After that it’s pretty easy.
 “Johnathan
Motley. He’s a
monster and
he’s on the “Dennis Smith.
Mavericks.” A lot of people
don’t know how
good Dennis
actually is, but I
know. Dennis is a
really good player.
I feel like he’s
gonna surprise a
lot of people
this year.“

Q:
Take yourself
out of the equation.
Who do you have
for Rookie of
“Dennis
the Year?
Smith.”

“Dennis.”

“Dennis Smith. I think

people are sleeping
on him. I know
what he can do.”

“Either Kyle Kuzma

or Josh Hart. Keep
it in the family.”

SL AMONLINE.COM 35
P R E V I E W

ROOKIES
MOST LIKELY TO...
UNFAIRLY BE A STEAL APPEAR Average

20
GET BENCH SECOND- YOUR IN A MUSIC
SPLINTERS ROUND GIRL VIDEO
DONOVAN STEAL MALIK DENNIS
MITCHELL DWAYNE MONK
ONK SMITH JR Points
s
BACON

M A R K E L L E F U LT Z

Average

10
Assists

BE ROOKIE
OF THE YEAR D E ’A A R O N F O X

LONZO Average
DAV ID D O W; I S A AC : J ES S E D. GA R R AG R A N T/A L L N B A E V I A G E T T Y IM AG ES
F U LT Z , FOX : J E N N I F E R P OT T H I E S E R ; M O N K : S T E V E F R E E M A N; B A R K L E Y:
M I TC H E L L , B A L L : N AT H A N IE L S . B U T L E R ; B AC O N , S M I T H J R , N T IL IK IN A ,

BALL
Have his name
mispronounced
by Charles
Barkley
10
Rebounds
FRANK
NTILIKINA

J O N AT H A N
ISAAC

36 SL AMONLINE.COM
 #SLAMTOP50 T H E R E A R E P L E N T Y O F “ T O P P L AY E R S ” L I S TS
O U T T H E R E , B U T N O N E H AV E T H E I M PAC T S L A M ’ S D O ES .
H E R E A R E T H E N B A’ S T O P 5 0 P L AY E R S , A S VO T E D
O N BY O U R STA F F, F O R T H E U P C O M I N G S E A S O N .
B Y R Y N E N E L S O N

1. LEBRON JAMES 6. JAMES HARDEN

After finishing runner-up in MVP voting for the
Regardless of who suits up in Cleveland, the
second time in three years, Harden was laser-
A N DY LYO N S /A L L G E T T Y IM AG ES ; 1 : M I C H A E L J. L E B R EC H T II , 2 : N OA H G R A H A M; 3 : L AY N E M U R D O C H /A L L N B A E
V I A G E T T Y IM AG ES ; 4: E Z R A S H AW, 5 : C H R I S C O VAT TA / B OT H G E T T Y IM AG ES ; 6: B IL L B A P T I S T; 7: GA RY D IN E E N;

Cavs will probably reach the Finals for the

TO P : JA M ES , D U R A N T: R O N A L D M A R T IN E Z ; W ES T B R O O K : E Z R A S H AW; C U R RY: G R EG O RY S H A M U S ; L EO N A R D :

focused on improving in the offseason. Expect

8 : J O N AT H A N B AC HM A N; 9: L AY N E M U R D O C H /A L L N B A E V I A G E T T Y IM AG ES ; 10 : R O B C A R R /G E T T Y IM AG ES

fourth straight year. That’s how good LeBron is.

the Beard to have his best season yet.

2. KEVIN DURANT 7. GIANNIS ANTETOKOUNMPO

If Giannis thinks he can win MVP this year, who’s
He hit the most clutch shot of the Finals. Was
going to stop him? The 22-year-old superstar
named Finals MVP. Had a 68.3 true shooting per-
does literally everything on the court, and he’s
centage in the playoffs. How’s that for cupcakes?
just getting started.

3. RUSSELL WESTBROOK 8. ANTHONY DAVIS

Davis refused to train with players on other
Westbrook averaged a triple-double, won the
teams during the offseason in order to gain a
MVP and could probably repeat it all this season.
competitive edge. The 24-year-old is clearly
That’s scary.
serious about winning this season.

4. STEPHEN CURRY 9. PAUL GEORGE

The Paul George trade to Oklahoma City caught
A revolutionary offensive talent, Curry will
the entire NBA world by surprise. By sharing the
go down as the greatest shooter of all time.
floor with Westbrook, PG won’t skip a beat in OKC
Let’s appreciate Curry’s brilliance while he’s in
this season and the Thunder will be a real threat
his prime.
in the West.

5. KAWHI LEONARD 10. JOHN WALL

If you created the perfect NBA player in a The best two-way guard in the game? If he’s
laboratory, Leonard is what you’d come up with. not, Wall is very close. JW tasted playoff
Equally skilled on both ends of the court, The success last season and will be hungry for more
Klaw is a true nightmare matchup. this year.

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P R E V I E W
11. KYRIE IRVING
After owning the 2017 offseason, Kyrie will
finally suit up for the Celtics this year. Anything
less than a huge season from Uncle Drew will
be a shock.
12. DEMARCUS COUSINS
Bigger, stronger, more skilled. That’s Boogie’s
game in a nutshell. He’s slimmed down and is
ready to make a playoff run in New Orleans this
season.
13. DAMIAN LILLARD
Lillard has always had his haters, but he lets his
game do the talking. Armed with a complete
offensive repertoire, he can’t be stopped in the
clutch, aka Dame Time.
14. KARL-ANTHONY TOWNS
KAT was arguably the best player in the NBA
post-All-Star last season, so watch out in 2017-
18. An All-Star berth is all but guaranteed this
year.
15. ISAIAH THOMAS
While the severity of his hip injury is unknown
as of press time, Thomas has the dedication and
heart to come back as strong as ever this season.
16. JIMMY BUTLER
Butler should thrive under Tom Thibodeau once
again. After all, Thibs helped Butler earn the
nickname Jimmy G. Buckets in Chicago.
17. KLAY THOMPSON
No player finds a heat check quite like Klay.
Capable of 30-point quarters while also locking
down tough opponents, Thompson is a constant
threat.
18. CHRIS PAUL
For the first time in his career, CP3 will be playing
off the ball for large amounts of the game. It’ll be
an adjustment, but no one is craftier than Paul.
19. DRAYMOND GREEN
The reigning DPOY proved that putting up lots of
points isn’t a requirement to make a big impact.
Green does his job, and he does it at an elite level.
20. BLAKE GRIFFIN
The green light will be on all year for Griffin. He
ended the season with a scary foot injury, but all
signs point to him being ready for opening night.
38 SL AMONLINE.COM
21. DEMAR DEROZAN
Deebo is not a good three-point shooter, but he’s
perhaps the League’s most gifted scorer from
everywhere within the arc. Make sure you watch
this man’s footwork.
22. CARMELO ANTHONY
Perhaps it’s time to call Carmelo underrated.
He’s a complete nightmare for opponents to
guard with an offensive package that’s second
to none.
23. KRISTAPS PORZINGIS
After an offseason playing with the Latvian
national team, KP is ready to take the reigns in
New York. There’s hope for the Knicks with the
young Porzingis on the come up.
24. GORDON HAYWARD
He became an All-Star in Utah, but Hayward
chose to chase a title in Boston. He should thrive
in Brad Stevens’ offensive system.
25. RUDY GOBERT
No Gordon Hayward in Utah means it’s Gobert’s
time to shine. The Defensive Player of the Year
award is not far out of reach.
2 2 , 2 3 : J E N N IF E R P OT T H E I S E R /A L L N B A E V I A GE T T Y IM AG ES ; 24: B R I A N B A B IN E AU; 2 5 : M E L I S S A M A J C H R Z A K ; 2 6: R O N T U R E N N E ;
1 1 : B R I A N B A B IN E AU; 1 2 : L AY N E M U R D O C H: 1 3 : S A M FO R E N C I C H; 14: DAV ID S H E R M A N; 1 5 : B R I A N B A B IN E AU; 16: R A N DY B E L I C E ;
17: N OA H GR A H A M; 1 8 : B IL L B A P T I S T; 1 9: N OA H G R A H A M; 2 0 : J UA N O’C A M P O/A L L N B A E V I A GE T T Y IM AGES ; 2 1 : R O N T U R E N N E ;
26. KYLE LOWRY
27: J O E M U R P H Y; 2 8 : J ES S E D. GA R R A B R A N T; 2 9; GA R R E T T E L LW O O D ; 3 0 : B A R RY G O S S AG E /A L L N B A E V I A G E T T Y IM AG ES
Coming back from wrist surgery will prove a
challenge, but Lowry is more than up for the
task. The 31-year-old still has the tools to be an
elite PG this season.
27. MIKE CONLEY
Props to the Conductor for signing the richest
contract in the NBA and then having the best
season of his career. He’s somehow still one of
the most underrated players in the game.
28. JOEL EMBIID
In 31 games last season, Embiid made it clear
that he has superstar potential. But this year,
he’ll have to answer the question on everyone’s
mind: Can he stay healthy?
29. NIKOLA JOKIC
Jokic alone makes the Nuggets a League Pass
must for his insane passes and crafty offensive
game. Denver has a cornerstone player in this
22-year-old.
30. DEVIN BOOKER
Of all the young players in the League, Booker
gets the most praise from the game’s superstars.
Book is a straight-up assassin.
 31. CJ MCCOLLUM 41. AL HORFORD
Perhaps the most efficient scorer in the game,
His numbers won’t jump off the page, but Hor-
McCollum puts on an absolute offensive clinic
ford makes countless winning plays. His passion
every night. Hard work is paying off for the
and intensity sets the tone for Boston.
26-year-old.

32. KEMBA WALKER 42. ANDRE DRUMMOND

Cardiac Kemba has come back better than After a disappointing campaign, Drummond’s
the last every season, so expect the trend to ranking dropped significantly from a year ago.
continue. Walker plays every possession of all 82 Perhaps the best rebounder in the league, Dre
games with heart. has to step up the rest of his game.

33. BRADLEY BEAL 43. GORAN DRAGIC

Finally with a healthy season under his belt, The crafty lefty thrived in Miami last season and
Beal showed why he’s an elite wing. An All-Star should continue to do so in 2017-18. You gotta
selection seems almost inevitable this year. love Dragic’s hard-nosed game.

34. DEANDRE JORDAN 44. MYLES TURNER

DJ sticks to his strengths—pick-and-roll and rim With Paul George in Oklahoma City, the keys in
protection—and does it at an elite rate. No big Indiana now belong to Turner. Still just 21, he’s
man is more athletic than Jordan. ready to prove that he’s a franchise talent.

35. MARC GASOL 45. LONZO BALL

The most complete center in the game, Gasol
All eyes will be on Ball this season, and rightly
does it all on both ends of the court. A high-level
R O B FO L DY/G E T T Y IM AG ES ; 4 4: R O N H O S K IN S ; 4 5 : J ES S E D. GA R R A B R A N T; 4 6 . L AY N E M U R D O C H; 47: G L E N N JA M ES /A L L N B A E V I A G E T T Y
31 . S A M FO R E N C I C H; 3 2 : K E N T S M I T H /A L L N B A E V I A G E T T Y IM AG ES ; 3 3 . R O B C A R R /G E T T Y IM AG ES ; 3 4: J UA N O’C A M P O ; 3 5 : J O E M U R P H Y;

so. From his sneakers to his reality show, Ball has

3 6: DAV ID S H E R M A N /A L L N B A E V I A G E T T Y IM AG ES ; 37: R O B FO L DY/G E T T Y IM AG ES ; 3 8 : S C OT T C U N N IN G H A M / N B A E V I A G E T T Y IM AGES ;

rim protector and passer, Gasol wants to see

3 9: JA S O N M IL L E R /G E T T Y IM AG ES ; 4 0 : C H R I S C O VAT TA ; 41 : B R I A N B A B IN E AU; 42 : R I C K O S E N TO S K I /A L L N B A E V I A G E T T Y IM AG ES ; 4 3 :

the name (and game) to be the next Laker great.

progress this season in Grind City.
IM AG ES ; 4 8 : A N D R E W D. B E R N S T E IN; 4 9: J ES S E D. GA R R A B R A N T/A L L N B A E V I A G E T T Y IM AG ES ; 5 0. R O B FO L DY/G E T T Y IM AG ES

36. ANDREW WIGGINS 46. JRUE HOLIDAY

The Wolves wanted Wiggins to sign a long-term As solid as point guards come, Holiday is an
extension, and for good reason. He’s durable, excellent third option for New Orleans. AD and
only 22 and an excellent defender, and he Boogie will run the show, but Holiday will com-
dropped 23.6 ppg last season. mand the backcourt.

37. HASSAN WHITESIDE 47. HARRISON BARNES

The only player in the League capable of a Barnes quietly put up career-high numbers
triple-double with blocks, Whiteside is a terror in during his first season in Dallas. The Mavs like
the paint with an expanding offensive game. the versatility that Barnes brings to the table.

38. PAUL MILLSAP 48. BROOK LOPEZ

After four All-Star seasons in the ATL, Millsap is Armed with a three-point shot, Lopez is as
heading back to the Western Conference, where talented offensively as any center in the League.
he’ll bring his workman-like game to the Mile He should be getting plenty of easy buckets in
High City. L.A. this year.

39. KEVIN LOVE 49. BEN SIMMONS

Perhaps a bit overlooked because of the Even after sitting out last season with a broken
summertime drama in Cleveland, Love is still a foot, Simmons moved up one spot from his Top
top forward in the League. A versatile offensive 50 ranking last year because of his massive
force, the Cavs will rely on Love more than ever. potential. Don’t sleep on the former No. 1 pick.

40. LAMARCUS ALDRIDGE 50. DION WAITERS

Capable of completely taking over games,
Waiters proved that when the game is on the line,
Aldridge has faded into Kawhi Leonard’s shadow
he has the cojones to take (and make) the big
at times. The Spurs need LA at full strength to
shot. At 25 years old, he’s coming into his own.
compete for a title.

SL AMONLINE.COM 39
P R E V I E W

STORY TO TELL
W H I L E W E ’ R E P R E PA R E D FO R A N O T H E R D O M I N A N T P E R F O R M A N C E F R O M
T H E WA R R I O R S T H I S S E A S O N , T H E R E A R E P L E N T Y O F O T H E R I N T R I G U I N G N A R R AT I V E S
A R O U N D T H E N B A T H AT W I L L K E E P U S G L U E D T O L E AG U E PA S S A N D S O C I A L M E D I A
FO R T H E N E X T S E V E N M O N T H S . H E R E A R E O U R FAVO R I T E S .

Who will own press

conferences this season?
» Russell Westbrook had this on lock last season, and will likely
repeat, but there will be some stiff competition. KD seems to give
less and less of a damn with each passing interview. James Harden
always brings out ridiculous outfits—though his postgame quotes leave
something to be desired. LeBron is LeBron. The dark horse, though, might
be Dion Waiters. If you’ve been following him on social media at all this
summer, you’ve seen a man that is feeling himself on a whole new level.
Add the fact that the Heat has a real shot to get back to the playoffs and
we should be seeing and hearing from Philly Cheese plenty this season.
—Peter Walsh, Senior Editor

Is this the year

When will the Sixers Giannis Antetokounmpo
take over the NBA? explodes?
» So we can all agree that we might as well hand the 2018 Larry
O’Brien trophy over to the Warriors right now, right? Right. But
that doesn’t mean this season will be without intrigue—for example,
» After a breakout season that saw him
emerge into an All-Star and become the
first player in NBA history to finish the regular
how long before the post-Process FEDS take over the NBA? Embiid, season in the top 20 in total points, rebounds,
Simmons and Fultz have as much potential as any young core we’ve assists, steals and blocks, it is clear that Giannis
seen in years. Can they stay healthy and fulfill all those lofty expecta- is now a fan favorite in the League. The question
tions, making fans forget all the ugly years that led to this point? We moving forward is whether the 22-year-old can
won’t know that answer for years. This season, though, should provide become a legitimate contender in the MVP
a hint of what’s to come. conversation.
—Yaron Weitzman, Senior Writer —Franklyn Calle, Associate Editor

40 SL AMONLINE.COM

M I TC H E L L L E F F/G E T T Y I M AG E S ; F U LT Z : J E N N I F E R P OT T H E I S E R ; A N T E TO KO U N M P O : R O N T U R E N N E ; WA R R I O R S : GA R R E T T E L LW O O D ; C P/ H A R D E N :
W ES T B R O O K : N AT H A N IE L S . B U T L E R ; JA M ES : DAV ID L I A M K Y L E / B OT H N B A E V I A G E T T Y IM AG ES ; S IM M O N S : N I C K L A H A M /G E T T Y IM AG ES ; E M B IID :
DAV ID D O W; T E AGU E : R O N H O S K IN S ; B U T L E R : GA RY D IN E E N; TO W N S , W I G G IN S , G IB S O N : DAV ID S H E R M A N /A L L N B A E V I A G E T T Y IM AG ES
Can the Warriors get...better?
»
Honestly? I didn’t think the Warriors were gonna win the
Championship last year. Not for lack of talent—I just didn’t think
they’d put it all together in KD’s first year. More of a Year 2 thing. I was
wrong, but it doesn’t mean the Dubs won’t improve, with Durant fur-
ther acclimating to GSW’s system and all that. They won’t go for 73+
wins—they’ve hopefully learned why attempting such a feat is a pretty
terrible idea—but they’ll play more together, more as a unit. Which is
to say, more unbeatable. Yikes.
—Adam Figman, Editor-in-Chieff
How will
the Chris
Paul-James
Harden era
play out in
H-Town?
» While Chris Paul opted in to the final year of his contract to join
the Rockets, CP3 is far from committing long term to Houston.
The 32-year-old will be an unrestricted free agent after this season,
giving him an easy out if the partnership with Harden doesn’t go as
planned. But all signs have been positive so far. Harden and Paul
have been in constant communication since the June 28 trade and
have played together in the Drew League, Black Ops in NYC and
at UCLA pickup runs. “Once [training camp] starts, we’ll be rolling
already,” Harden told Sports Illustrated.
—Ryne Nelson, Senior Editor
How will social media
continue to change
the League?
» Raise your hand if you thought 10 years ago
that social media would play a major role in
the NBA. Waiting…nobody, right? But here we are.
This past offseason, CJ McCollum posted a
picture of Carmelo Anthony in a Blazers jersey on
Instagram, and Rudy Gobert traded playful jabs
with Isaiah Thomas on Twitter. When the Kyrie
Irving trade went down, if you weren’t on Twitter,
you were missing out on countless news items,
jokes, memes and hours of entertainment.
Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball even set the
Lakers army on a war path because of a player’s
video game rating. What a time.
—Max Resetar, Associate Editor
Are
the
T-Wolves
ready?
» Are we sure this is even a debate? Minnesota’s
starting five—Jeff Teague, Andrew Wiggins,
Jimmy Butler, Taj Gibson and Karl-Anthony
Towns—is perfectly balanced. It has youth and
experience, scoring and selflessness, speed and
defense. Reserve Jamal Crawford can bail the team
out if need be, and there’s plenty of front-court
depth, too. It may take a minute to jell, but soon
enough, this team is gonna cook.
—Leo Sepkowitz, Senior Writer
SL AMONLINE.COM 41
P R E V I E W

42 SL A MONLINE.COM
 A R P A R T OF
N D E R -T HE-RAD E SWAP
S A N U E A D L I N
D Y H I ELD WA I N G S T R ADE D S OLID
BU D C A N S - K U T U P
M A S S I VE PELI M A N A G ED TO P E RS HIS
THE U T H E N D E N T
A S T S E ASON, B I N G M O N THS A
R P I E CE OF
L S U T E
E R S I N THE EN U E A S T H E CEN
I LD.
NUMB L E A G O R E B U
D Y E A R IN THE S A C R AMENT
SECON EXCITIN G
M A T E LY
A LEGITI E O
S E P K
O W I
T Z

L
D S E N A
W O R A T H
S Y
C A S
I T S
O R T R A
P

SL AMONLINE.COM 43
P R E V I E W

U R I N G A L L - S TA R S U N D AY

D
this past February, Buddy Hield
was at home in New Orleans,
getting ready for a night out. His
Pelicans were hosting All-Star
Weekend, and though the main
game had just wrapped, plenty
of celebrating remained. Before
leaving, Hield heard the jingle
of an ESPN alert. He mindlessly
picked up his phone and read off
the screen. Change of plans. He
was going to Sacramento in a
deal for DeMarcus Cousins.
For Hield, a rookie, to be traded at all was bizarre, and to go to
Sacramento was stunning. Sacramento? It was as far as could be
from his native Bahamas, and nowhere near the southern states
where he spent his teenage and college years.
“I didn’t watch Sacramento, didn’t know what they did,” Hield
says. “I was caught in a daze. But I had to go on to the next team.
I decided to try to turn the franchise around.”
That’s a tall order. The Kings have not been good in more than
a decade. In 2002, Chris Webber, Mike Bibby, Peja Stojakovic and
Vlade Divac led a memorably selfless team to the Conference
Finals. Sadly, though, a litany of injuries and odd trades cursed
that era and plagued the ones that followed. Just a few years
ago, the franchise nearly left town altogether.
And yet, Hield’s goal is not out of reach. Yes, hope springs
eternal in Sacramento thanks to one of the League’s more
intriguing young cores. This season, the Kings will feature 10
players with zero-to-two years of NBA experience, with nine first- him from everybody else. Buddy Love is a big heart. That soul is
round picks among them. Hield is the movement’s centerpiece. divine. He’s patient, he’s humble, he’s genuine. It’s all about love.”
Following the big trade last year, Hield started 18 games with Hield grew up in a three-bedroom home filled with seven chil-
Sacramento. In those starts, he averaged around 16 points, 4.5 dren, one grandmother, and Hield’s mother, Jackie Swann, who
rebounds, 2 assists and 2.5 threes per game. He hit 47 percent worked as a housekeeper. It was no doubt a modest beginning,
overall and 43 percent from deep. If done over a full season, those one that Hield still carries with him.
numbers would stand alone across the NBA—last year, no player This past summer, Hield hosted a number of camps to raise
scored as many points and hit as many threes at higher clips. money for victims of Hurricane Matthew, which swept through
On the floor, Hield moves with a purpose. He likes to approach the Islands last year. Two programs were in the Bahamas—one
half-court sets at a measured pace, surveying the floor. At 6-4, in Nassau, the other in Freeport. He would donate 150 pairs of
he has excellent handles in traffic; at 215 pounds, he’s comfort- Nikes, plus endless backpacks and necessities, to Freeport locals.
able attacking the rim. Most of all, though, he loves to stroke Says Jalisa, who helped organize the camps, “Buddy is a big
it. Hield has a simple, quick release from deep, but shoots in a deal there, but for him, it’s not about being a big deal. It’s about
thousand unorthodox ways from inside the arc. He’s shown a the sacrifice—teaching kids to sacrifice. His wish is not to just get
Dirk-ish turnaround, a Pierce-esque leaning jumper, a Parker-like kids to the NBA, but for them to go beyond and do greater things,
floater. Sometimes, those moves will converge, like on a funky and to then come back for the community.”
20-footer that he releases with one hand, falling forward, or on a Hield also held stateside camps in Wichita, KS, where he
physically improbable fadeaway floater. played high school ball, and in Oklahoma, where he spent four
R O C K Y W I D N E R / N B A E V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S

“In the NBA, everyone is so athletic, the defense is so good, you
just try to find a way to get a shot off quick,” he says. “I enjoy watch-
ing Paul George, Steph Curry, CJ McCollum—guys who score the
ball a lot. I try to nitpick their moves. But I just be me on the court.”
Hield is calling from L.A., where he’s been training ahead of
his sophomore season. He speaks quickly with a heavy Bahamian
accent (he was born in the town of Freeport). He likes to say that he
has three alter-egos: Buddy Buckets, Buddy Fresh and Buddy Love.
His sister Jalisa, 27, describes them: “Buddy Buckets is for
on the court—the raw talent. Buddy Fresh is him red-carpet
ready. He has swag. He has a feel about himself that separates
years as a Sooner.
In his final season at OU, Hield was a first-team All-American
and won several player of the year awards en route to the 2016
Final Four. His numbers that season were outrageous: 25 points
and 4 three-pointers per game while shooting over 50 percent
from the floor. Still, at the time, few imagined Hield finding simi-
lar success in the NBA.
Before the draft, Bleacher Report wrote that, “the biggest
concern with Hield is his lack of ability to create shots for himself
off the dribble. There was a JJ Redickian quality to his game [at
OU].” This was a common complaint.

44 SL AMONLINE.COM

“I DIDN’T WATCH SACRAMENTO,
DIDN’T KNOW WHAT THEY DID.
BUT I HAD TO GO ON TO THE NEXT
TEAM. I DECIDED TO TRY TO TURN
THE FRANCHISE AROUND.”
— H I E L D
Hield would go No. 6 to New Orleans, who began the
season 0-8. Most nights, the rookie was stuck behind the likes
of Solomon Hill and E’Twaun Moore—a glosomy sign.
In February, when Hield headlined Sacramento’s return pack-
age for Cousins, the deal was met with unanimous shock.
Sports Illustrated called the deal “horrible” for Sacramento,
and wondered about a potential rebellion against the front office.
The Ringer quoted a league source as saying, “They gave Cousins
away for a three-piece meal at Popeyes lol.”
Even NBA players, who usually reserve their negative opinions
out of respect for their peers, couldn’t help themselves. CJ
McCollum asked if the trade was real. Isaiah Thomas wondered
if it would even be allowed by the lenient trade-approvers in
NBA2K. Many more players dropped
“Wows” and various stunned emojis.
The disbelief didn’t last long. Hield
scored 16 and then 15 points in his first
two games with the Kings, a taste of
what was to come. “Sacramento freed
me to open my game,” he says. “I was
able to figure out the NBA speed. I found
my feel for the game—don’t be in a hurry,
be under control.”
His supporting cast developed, too. Spe-
cifically, three front-court pieces, who were
given increased playing time swith Cousins
out of the picture, showed great promise.
Skal Labissiere (21 years old), at 7 feet
tall, has a sweet jumper and rebounds
well. Willie Cauley-Stein (23) averaged
around 13 points, 8 boards, 1 steal and
1 block following the trade. Georgios
Papagiannis (20) is on his way to a bruising, double-double-filled
career. Each player impressed Hield.
“When I got there, I said, Yo Skal is not bad!” Hield says. “He can
shoot over anybody, and he’s progressing every day. He has that
swagger when he walks and talks—that he’s it. I like guys like that.”
As for Cauley-Stein: “I love Willie,” Hield says. “He’s a great
defender and rim protector.”
And Papagiannis: “That’s a big body, man.”
This summer, the Kings did an admirable job building around
Hield and their three bigs. In June, they selected De’Aaron Fox,
the lightning-quick point guard, at No. 5. They then flipped a draft
pick acquired in the Cousins trade for two lower first-rounders and
grabbed Justin Jackson, a three-year wing from UNC, and Harry
Giles, a raw, more athletic prospect from Duke, who was projected
to go in the top-10 before knee injuries slowed him down during
his lone season in college. In the second round, they picked Frank
Mason III from Kansas, the reigning National Player of the Year.
In July, the team added veterans George Hill, Vince Carter and
Zach Randolph via free agency. Additionally, Bogdan Bogdanovic,
the highly regarded Serbian swingman, will make his NBA debut
this season at age 25.
“When we made that decision [to trade Cousins], we knew
exactly where we were going,” Divac, now the team’s GM, recent-
ly told The Boston Globe. “So far, it’s exactly what we want. We
have nice, young, talented kids, and obviously with the addition
of veteran guys, [they] are going to teach them on a daily basis
what it takes to win, what it takes to be a pro.”
Some lessons will also come from the Kings royalty that
remains involved with the franchise. In addition to Divac, Doug
Christie (local TV analyst) and Stojakovic (GM of G-League affil-
iate) are constantly around the team, preaching to Hield about
defensive intensity and three-point shooting, respectively.
Drawing advice from those guys is sweet, though tapping into
their old team success would be even sweeter. These Kings may
not be the Webber/Divac Kings—not yet—but perhaps they can
emulate the group that preceded that Conference Finals squad.
In ’98-99, following a decade of Kings basketball worse than
this one, C-Webb arrived from Washington, Divac from Charlotte,
and Stojakovic and the devilish Jason Williams debuted as rookies.
The team played to a 44-win pace in a lockout-shortened year.
For Buddy Hield’s Kings, such a revolution begins now. As he
says, the pieces are in place—it’s just up to the team’s youngsters
to catch up to the resident vets. Indeed, it won’t be long before the
young Kings have the rest of the league looking up at Sacramento. S
SL AMONLINE.COM 45
P R E V I E W

During the offseason, with the

United States rife with protest and
policy change, NBA players used
their platforms to voice strong
opinions on the state of the country.
Now it looks like the League may
become intertwined with political
activism like never before.
W O R D S P E T E R W A L S H

46 SL AMONLINE.COM
 I T ’ S L A B O R D AY 2 0 1 7 and the
summer is wrapping up following
I
months of political strife, protests
and tragedy. The turmoil reached
a boiling point during the weekend
of August 12 when white suprem-
acists and Nazis descended upon
the city of Charlottesville, VA, for a
“Unite the Right” rally that resulted
in the death of 32-year-old Heather
Heyer, who was killed when James
Alex Fields Jr intentionally drove
his car into a group of protestors.
As the events unfolded, NBA
players took to Twitter to echo the feelings of shock, fear and
disgust that the majority of the public was experiencing. Donald
Trump fueled the fire by refusing to immediately condemn the
supremacists, claiming at a press conference that there was
violence on “both sides.”
Days later, LeBron James spoke at his foundation’s annual
family reunion and used his platform to call Trump the “so-
called president of the United States.” James then made a plea
for those in attendance to take a look in the mirror and ask,
“What can we do better to help change?”
NBA players—and professional athletes in general—have a long
history of being involved in social, political and race issues. Over the
past few years, more and more marquee players have been using
their status to voice their views and help promote change. LeBron,
along with friends and fellow superstars Carmelo Anthony, Chris
Paul and Dwyane Wade, stood on stage at the 2016 ESPYs—just
one week after the deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling at
the hands of the police—and called on celebrity athletes to “Speak
up. Use our influence. And renounce all violence.”
The acts of those four superstars have had a trickle-down
effect, with more and more NBA players getting involved in com-
munity efforts, speaking out against racist violence and actively
participating in protests, following in the footsteps of activists
like Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Isiah Thomas.
“We all have feelings and we just want to talk about [issues]
the right way,” says Karl-Anthony Towns, who penned a piece for
The Players’ Tribune following the violence in Charlottesville. “I
just try to be positive and do it the right way. I don’t want to bash
anyone. I want to spread love and respect to everyone. I want to
remind people of our situations and do that with love and respect.”
In the NFL, America’s most popular sports league, quarterback
Colin Kaepernick remains unsigned as of press time as more and
S L A M O N L I N E . C O M 47
P R E V I E W

more no-name quarterbacks take the field. Kaeper-

nick has become the center of attention following
his decision to protest the National Anthem by
sitting during the playing of the song before a 2016
preseason game. Later on, he started taking a knee
before games as the Anthem played. “I am not go-
ing to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country
that oppresses black people and people of color,”
Kaepernick told NFL Media in late August of ’16.
“To me, this is bigger than football and it would be
selfish on my part to look the other way. There are
bodies in the street and people getting paid leave
and getting away with murder.”
Kaepernick is widely believed to have been
blackballed from the NFL because of his protest.
Throughout the preseason, players across the NFL
showed their support for the quarterback by kneel-
ing for the anthem and saying that Kap should be
on a roster if team owners and general managers
are serious about winning games. It’s clear that
keeping Kaepernick off the field is not going to
silence his message or simply make him go away.
With the NBA season looming and players
becoming increasingly politically active, it begs the
question as to whether we’ll see more activism on
the hardwood in the same vein as Kaepernick’s.
“I think there are some players that have enough
courage to follow [Kaepernick’s] lead or help him on his journey,” franchises have participated as co-conspirators” in “blackballing”
Nuggets forward Wilson Chandler says. “I think if you were doing him from the League “because of his outspoken political nature
something to symbolize Kaepernick and what he’s done and what as an African-American man.” The case was later dismissed.
he’s trying to accomplish, a player would have to take a knee Hodges bounced around internationally throughout the rest of
or something in that regard during the National Anthem. To be the ’90s, but did find his way back to the NBA as an assistant
honest, I don’t think any of the players are going to do it. But if it with Jackson’s Lakers from 2005-11.
were to happen, it would probably be something similar to that.” Also in 1996, Denver Nuggets point guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf
But before we continue to look forward, it’s important to look was suspended by the NBA for refusing to stand during the playing
at how the NBA has handled cases of activism and protest in the of the National Anthem. Abdul-Rauf, a practicing Muslim, had been
recent past. skipping out on the ceremony throughout the season, opting to
Before the 1991 Finals against the Lakers, Craig Hodges, a stay in the locker room or stretch on the sideline. When asked by
three-point specialist for the Bulls, asked Michael Jordan and a reporter about his actions during the playing of the Anthem, the
Magic Johnson not to take the floor for Game 1 as a way to point guard said that the American flag was a symbol of “oppres-
protest the beating of Rodney King by four white LAPD officers. sion, of tyranny.” Abdul-Rauf and the NBA came to a compromise:
When the Bulls visited the White House in ’92 to celebrate their Mahmoud would stand for the Anthem, but would pray silently to
P R E V I O U S : K E V I N W I N T E R /G E T T Y I M AG E S ; T H I S S P R E A D F R O M

second-straight NBA title, Hodges wore a dashiki and handed himself with his hands cupped in front of his face.
L E F T: A L B E L L O/G E T T Y I M AG E S ; B R I A N B A H R /A L L S P O R T

President George H.W. Bush a letter that urged him to address
the problems of poor and minority communities.
The Bulls would later release him and he never played in
another NBA game.
‘’I thought we improved ourselves [at Craig’s position],’’ Phil
Jackson told The New York Times in 1996. ‘’I had the highest re-
gard for Craig, though. He was a great team player, never caused
any problems and I respected his views. I’m a spiritual man, and
so is he. But I also found it strange that not a single team called
to inquire about him. Usually, I get at least one call about a
player we’ve decided not to sign. And yes, he couldn’t play much
defense, but a lot of guys in the league can’t, but not many can
shoot from his range, either.’’
In 1996, Hodges filed a $40 million lawsuit against the NBA
claiming that “the owners and operators of the 29 NBA member
Unlike Hodges, Abdul-Rauf was a starter—a damn good one
at that. He averaged 19.2 points and 6.8 assists for Denver that
season. The reaction to his protest divided NBA fans, and the
controversy soon spilled out to the public sphere. Abdul-Rauf was
met with death threats and had the letters “KKK” spray-painted
close to the construction of his home in Gulfport, MS. He never
moved into the home and in 2001, the vacant house was burned
to the ground.
Abdul-Rauf, who was in his sixth season at the time, was
traded to Sacramento and was out of the League by 1998. He
returned for a brief stint in Vancouver in 2001, but his career was
never the same after what happened in Denver.
“It’s a process of just trying to weed you out,” he told The
Undefeated last year. “They begin to try to put you in vulnerable
positions. They play with your minutes, trying to mess up your

48 SL AMONLINE.COM
 “WE ALL HAVE FEELINGS AND WE JUST
WANT TO TALK ABOUT ISSUES THE RIGHT WAY.
I JUST TRY TO BE POSITIVE AND DO IT THE RIGHT WAY.
I DON’T WANT TO BASH ANYONE. I WANT TO SPREAD
LOVE AND RESPECT TO EVERYONE.”
— T O W N S
rhythm. Then they sit you more. Then what it looks like is, well,
the guy just doesn’t have it anymore, so we trade him.
“It’s kind of like a setup. You know, trying to set you up to fail
and so when they get rid of you, they can blame it on that as
opposed to, it was really because he took these positions. They
don’t want these type of examples to spread, so they’ve got to
make an example of individuals like this.”
In 2014, players including LeBron, Derrick Rose, Kevin Garnett,
Kyrie Irving, Deron Williams, Jarrett Jack and Alan Anderson
wore “I Can’t Breathe” shirts during warmups after a grand jury
decided that the officer who choked Staten Island, NY, resident
Eric Garner to death would not be indicted. None of the players
were fined for violating the League’s apparel rules.
Also in 2014, the Los Angeles Clippers staged a silent protest
before Game 4 of the first round of the playoffs. The team was
showing solidarity after audio of former Clippers owner Donald
Sterling making racist comments was leaked to TMZ. The com-
ments sparked outrage throughout the NBA, with LeBron saying at
the time that “there is no room for Donald Sterling in our League.”
Sterling was subsequently banned for life by commissioner
Adam Silver.
Based on recent history, the NBA has become more progressive
and understanding of protest, and Silver and National Basketball
Players Association Executive Director Michele Roberts sent a
letter to the players before the season started saying that the
“Players Association and the League are always available to help
you figure out the most meaningful way to make the difference”
when it comes to social issues. But it is impossible to totally
look past the treatment of Hodges and Abdul-Rauf. There has
been an increase in big-time players using their platform to raise
awareness, but there has not been an NBA protest as divisive as
Kaepernick’s kneeling during the National Anthem.
“[What happened to Abdul-Rauf] wasn’t that long ago,”
Chandler says. “I would like to put my faith in the NBA and
owners, it’s a wonderful organization and seeing how they
handled the Donald Sterling situation, hopefully if a protest
happened now, they wouldn’t blackball a player for exercising his
constitutional rights.”
While we would like to believe that the NBA would act much
differently than the NFL, we won’t really know until a marquee
player takes a dramatic on-court stand.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban told The Washington
Post, in regards to Kaepernick, that he’s “glad the NBA doesn’t
have a politician litmus test for our players. I’d like to think we
encourage our players to exercise their constitutional rights.”
With more and more people seemingly in tune with what’s
going on in DC thanks to social media and 24/7 news coverage, it
seems as if you can’t go anywhere these days without stepping
into a conversation about politics. Will that
carry into NBA arenas this season?
“I don’t think it will have much of an
impact,” Cuban told SLAM via e-mail.
“Most people follow political commentary
as much as they follow cricket scores.
For those of us who pay close attention, it
seems like a big deal. For everyone else who
goes to or watches games for the love of
the team and game, it’s not something they
pay attention to.”
NBA players have a chance, now more
than ever, to use their platform to raise
awareness about issues that hit close to
home. As events become politicized and
cause friction amongst the general public,
we may soon find out if players are given
an opportunity to speak up and spread a
message of hope—or if they’re subtly dis-
couraged from doing so. S
SL AMONLINE.COM 49
 K AWHI LEONARD
San Antonio Spurs

RONALD CORTES/GETTY IMAGES

KEVIN DUR ANT
Golden State Warriors

N AT H A N I E L S . B U T L E R / N B A E V I A G E T T Y I M A G E S
 Carry On Tradition
W I T H A N O T H E R M O N ST E R R EC R U I T I N G J O B BY C OAC H K , D U K E I S P R I M E D
T O W I N I TS S EC O N D C H A M P I O N S H I P I N F O U R Y E A R S . O N T H E W O M E N ’ S S I D E ,
U C O N N L O O K S T O B O U N C E B AC K A F T E R A S T U N N I N G F I N A L F O U R L O S S .
MEN’S TOP 10
10. WEST VIRGINIA MOUNTAINEERS
While it will rarely look pretty, Bob
Huggins has the ideal team for his grind-
it-out style. Almost everyone he puts on
the floor will be able to play defense, but
the big difference will be that he has two
polished scorers (guard Jevon Carter and
forward Esa Ahmad) to keep other teams
honest.
9. MIAMI HURRICANES
While the blue bloods will get all the pre-
season attention, Miami might end up as
the best team in the ACC. Bruce Brown is
one of college basketball’s top guards, and
fellow backcourt mates Ja’Quan Newton
and Lonnie Walker can score in bunches
for the Hurricanes.
8. KENTUCKY WILDCATS
In many ways, this is a typical John Cali-
pari team, featuring one of the country’s
top groups of freshmen, including Kevin
Knox. But this year’s squad might take a
while to get in its groove, as it’s missing
the veteran leadership found in Calipari’s
best teams.
50 SL AMONLINE.COM
B Y D A V I D C A S S I L O
ALLONZO TRIER
7. KANSAS JAYHAWKS
Gone is Wooden Award winner Frank
Mason III, but the Jayhawks will once again
have an elite backcourt led by Devonte’
Graham and Mississippi State transfer
Malik Newman. Like last year, the key will
be getting strong inside play, and youth
will be asked to step up.
6. VILLANOVA WILDCATS
The familiar names of Josh Hart and Kris
Jenkins are gone, but this deep team still
returns point guard Jalen Brunson and
projected first-round pick Mikal Bridges.
The season likely hinges on what the
Wildcats get inside from former top-20
recruit Omari Spellman, who redshirted
last year.
5. LOUISVILLE CARDINALS
A possible No. 1 team if Donovan Mitchell
returned, Louisville is still among the
country’s best due to its great depth, at-
tacking defense, and top-notch coaching.
If Deng Adel or Quentin Snider take the
next step and become elite scorers or
leaders, watch out.
4. WICHITA STATE SHOCKERS
Everyone is back from a Wichita State
team that was playing as well as anyone at
the end of last season. The Shockers might
have more depth and experience than
anyone in college basketball, and a move
to the AAC should give them a more bat-
tle-tested and respected regular season.
3. ARIZONA WILDCATS
A blend of youth and experience should
make Arizona one of the deepest teams
in the field. Junior Allonzo Trier will
anchor the backcourt as a Wooden Award

DEVONTE’ GRAHAM
candidate, while 7-footer DeAndre Ayton
is one of the best frontcourt freshman in
the nation.
2. MICHIGAN STATE SPARTANS
Perhaps the best player returning in all of
basketball is Miles Bridges, a surefire
lottery pick who had some unfinished busi-
ness in East Lansing [for more on Miles,
see pg. 64]. Surrounding him is a young
T R IE R : A L E X C A PA R R O S /G E T T Y IM AG ES ; G R A H A M : T IM OT H Y N WAC H U K W U/ N C A A P H OTO S V I A G E T T Y IM AG ES ;
Spartan team that seemed to get better
every week last year and should—at the
M I TC H E L L : G F I U M E / M A RY L A N D T E R R A P IN S /G E T T Y IM AG ES ; W IL L I A M S : P E T E R G. A IK E N /G E T T Y IM AG ES
very least—win the Big Ten.
1. DUKE BLUE DEVILS
While comparisons will be made to last
year’s underachieving group, this Duke
team should reach expectations because
of its balance. They have a true stud at
each position, including top recruit Marvin
Bagley III. If the team jells properly, they
can cut down the nets.
WOMEN’S TOP 10
10. TENNESSEE LADY VOLUNTEERS
Most believe the best recruiting class
in the country will be in Knoxville this
season. That’s a good thing for the Lady
Volunteers, whose star player Diamond
DeShields decided to leave Knoxville and
play professionally overseas. Whether it’s
this year or down the road, Tennessee will
be back in the Final Four soon.
9. STANFORD CARDINAL
This is a team led by its frontcourt, as few
teams boast a duo as talented as Alanna
Smith and Nadia Fingall. The other
strength is a top-notch recruiting class that
should make an immediate impact and
could push Stanford into the Final Four.
8. NOTRE DAME FIGHTING IRISH
A young but talented team, Notre Dame
should once again be the class of the ACC,
but they’ll miss center Brianna Turner,
who will spend the season rehabbing a
torn ACL. If they can overcome her ab-
sence, Notre Dame should once again be
poised for a deep March run.
7. UCLA BRUINS
This senior-led group is hoping that it can
close out its career with some memorable
March wins. The three leading scorers
are back, including Jordin Canada. The
Pac-12 is a deep league, but the Bruins are
positioned as well as anyone to win the
conference.
6. MISSISSIPPI STATE BULLDOGS
After scoring one of the most memorable
wins in the history of college basketball,
the Bulldogs are back for more. The
hero from the win over UConn, Morgan
William, returns along with backcourt
counterpart Victoria Vivians.
5. TEXAS LONGHORNS
The backcourt is the strength here, as
both Ariel Atkins and Brooke McCarty
KELSEY MITCHELL
GABBY WILLIAMS
return for the Longhorns. The other
strength is a great recruiting class led by
Rellah Boothe and Chasity Patterson.
Without question, Texas is a program on
the rise.
4. SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS
The defending champions lost three
key players to the WNBA draft, but the
Gamecocks can reload for another deep
run in 2017-18. A’ja Wilson will key the
attack, and Elisia Grissett leads a strong
recruiting class that should see major
minutes early.
3. OHIO STATE BUCKEYES
With the return of Kelsey Mitchell, the
Buckeyes not only have perhaps college
basketball’s best player, but also a chance
to make the Final Four. Ohio State should
have no trouble running through a weaker
Big Ten and earning a No. 1 seed in March.
2. BAYLOR LADY BEARS
Guard Nina Davis has graduated, but
there is still plenty of talent left in Waco.
The anchor to this year’s team will be the
inside play of Kalani Brown and Lauren
Cox. Filling out the backcourt will be a
strong group of veterans and freshmen.
1. CONNECTICUT HUSKIES
There’s no surprise here, as the Huskies
are once again the team to beat. All but
one key player is back from last year in
a group led by senior Gabby Williams—
possibly the nation’s top two-way player.
After last year’s disappointment, the
Huskies should hoist the trophy again
soon enough.
SL AMONLINE.COM 51
P R E V I E W
 IN AUGUST, 18-YEAR-OLD MARVIN BAGLEY III
RECLASSIFIED SO THAT HE COULD GRADUATE HIGH SCHOOL AND ATTEND
DUKE UNIVERSITY THIS YEAR, IMMEDIATELY JOINING WHAT WILL LIKELY
BE THE MOST DOMINANT TEAM IN THE NCAA. THE NBA AWAITS, BUT
FOR THE NEXT SEVERAL MONTHS, MBIII IS OUT TO PROVE HIS RANKING
AS ONE OF THE BEST YOUNG PLAYERS IN THE COUNTRY IS DESERVED.
W O R D S A D A M F I G M A N / / P O R T R A I T S A T I B A J E F F E R S O N

SL AMONLINE.COM 53
P R E V I E W

O
The second step tends to be talent,
and Bagley III had plenty of that, too. He
kept growing—he never stopped being
the tallest kid in his class—and he quickly
accumulated skills to match the height.
Those skills eventually earned him a
scholarship to Duke University, where
he’ll be the star of the most stacked NCAA
roster in the nation this fall. The team
also features top recruits Trevon Duval,
Wendell Carter Jr and Gary Trent Jr, along
with senior Grayson Allen. Bagley III is
set to be either the best or second best
player in the country, depending on your
opinion of Missouri’s Michael Porter Jr,
and is a lock to be a top 5 NBA draft pick
in June of 2018.
“There’s a lot of eyes on me now,”
Bagley III says minutes after wrapping
up his first SLAM cover shoot at Duke’s
Cameron Indoor Stadium the morning of
his freshman move-in day. “It’s exciting. It’s
something I’ve always dreamed of—going
to college and playing college basketball,
being able to do what I love to do.”
Growing up, Bagley III never struggled
to control the post, grab rebounds and
generally just toss around smaller oppo-
nents. But Bagley Jr wanted his son to
learn the entirety of the game, be it drib-
bling the ball up the floor or making the
right pass. This became a bit of a source
of contention for those who dealt with
the family over the years, with countless
coaches wanting to ride Bagley III to tour-
nament wins by throwing him under the
basket and dominating the competition,
while Bagley Jr preferred his son develop
a well-rounded style of play. “Some
teams held me back, and that’s when my
parents came in and we moved to a lot of
N M A R V I N B A G L E Y I I I ’ S first day of first grade,
his father, Marvin Bagley Jr, was dropping his eldest son off
at school when he came to a realization: His boy was taller
than all the other kids. A lot taller.
“Head and shoulders above everyone else,” Bagley Jr
says. “It was like, Wow, he might be really tall.”
That’s when Bagley Jr decided that Bagley III should
probably get involved with sports—Junior had played
college football at North Carolina A&T and then in the
Arena Football League—and basketball made sense, for
obvious reasons. “It takes height, sometimes,” Bagley Jr
says. “It’s a good first step.”
different teams,” Bagley III says. “I can’t aged 19.6 points and 10.3 rebounds per
count how many teams I’ve been on.” game, leading the school to its fourth con-
“In the beginning, we played for a lot secutive state championship. The following
of programs that played for trophies,” season, Bagley III left Corona del Sol
Bagley Jr says. “At a young age, you have for Hillcrest Prep, a basketball program
to be aware about developing the kid. We where students take classes at Starshine
left a lot of teams because that develop- Academy in Phoenix and spend hours upon
ment wasn’t there.” hours honing their on-court craft. But mere
(Bagley Jr has always been his son’s months after the transfer, amidst a mild
guiding force. Even over the past year, at controversy in which Hillcrest’s academic
most of his son’s AAU and Drew League status was in question and one of the
games, he was often spotted somewhere team’s important games was pulled off
on the baseline holding a camcorder, doc- ESPN, the family left Arizona for California,
umenting the action alongside members where they settled in Chatsworth, CA, so
of the media who were credentialed to Bagley III and his younger brother Marcus
capture footage.) could attend Sierra Canyon HS.
When MBIII was in fifth grade, his pops Sure, there’s a little bit of a theme of
founded Phoenix Phamily, and on his own inconsistency here—with the many AAU
AAU team he let his son learn the ins and programs Bagley III played in as a young
outs of handling the rock. “I could have 50 child, and the multiple high schools he
turnovers, but my dad still trusted me to attended as a teen—but what remained
go out and play and push,” Bagley III says. consistent was, if we’re being honest,
“I’m thankful for that—that’s why I’m the only thing that truly mattered: a real
where I am today.” commitment to the game of basketball.
It helped that Bagley Jr had some Over the years Bagley III kept getting
foresight on the evolution of the sport. better, and at no point did he come close
With the traditional back-to-the-basket to falling out of the HS prospect rankings.
center fading away and “unicorns” like In fact, his grip on the top got tighter.
Karl-Anthony Towns, Joel Embiid and In 2016-17 at Sierra Canyon, a fully
Kristaps Porzingis—athletic 7-footers who grown, 6-11 Bagley III averaged 24.9
can play inside and out—taking over the points, 10.1 boards and 2.0 blocks per
center position over the past couple of game, leading the school to the CIF
years, Bagley III is next in line to carry that Southern Section Open Division semifinals
big man torch. But Bagley III’s inevitable before the team was defeated by eventual
ascension was put in motion before the state champions Bishop Montgomery.
aforementioned superstars exploded onto (Bagley III had 28 and 12 in the loss.) Chris
the scene. The soft-spoken Arizona native Paul, Paul Pierce and Lamar Odom all
has been ranked top three (and usually attended Sierra Canyon games at some
No. 1) in his class since he was a freshman point during his tenure there, and he was
at Corona del Sol HS in Tempe, AZ. named Gatorade State Player of the Year
That year at Corona del Sol, he aver- at the end of the ’16-17 season.
SL AMONLINE.COM 55
P R E V I E W

“THERE’S A LOT OF EYES ON

ME NOW. IT’S SOMETHING I’VE
ALWAYS DREAMED OF.”
— B A G L E Y I I I

“He’s a freak,” says Andre Chevalier,
who was an assistant coach at Sierra
Canyon while Bagley III played there and
will be the team’s head coach this com-
ing season. “I don’t know what to
say other than that. The combination
of who he is doesn’t come along very
often. He’s able to rebound it and dribble
it, and he shoots it pretty good. There’s
obviously things he needs to improve
upon, but on the high school level, he
was unstoppable.”
Chevalier also coached Bagley III on
the AAU circuit a little bit, which is where
he experienced the moment he realized
this kid was playing on a different level
than anyone else in his age group. In one
tournament, Marvin caught a pass while
running the baseline, rose up, spun for a
complete 360, then soared toward the
J O S H L E F KO W I T Z /G E T T Y IM AG ES
front of the rim and dunked it. “I was like,
Did I just see what I just saw?” Chevalier
says. “The freakishness of it—he couldn’t
have thought about it. His instincts were
just like, How do I get myself to the front
of the rim? And he just caught it, did a
360 and dunked it.
“I was like, Good Lord Almighty.”
O
N T H AT T U E S D AY in late
August, minutes after he
arrives on campus for move-in
day, Marvin Bagley III and his
family walk through Cameron
en route to our cover shoot. Seemingly
every person who bumps into Bagley III
says the same thing, something like, “So
you’re the guy we keep hearing about!”
Kids ask for selfies and parents offer
handshakes. Duke’s next superstar is
officially present.
Just months ago, most in the college
basketball scene couldn’t have guessed
things were going to play out like this.
Until August 14, Bagley III had technical-
ly only completed his junior year, with a
full year of eligibility remaining before
he could take off to college. But that
night on SportsCenter, with a national
audience watching, Bagley III announced
that he was reclassifying and committing
to Duke University.
It was yet another recruiting win for
Coach Mike Krzyzewski, who has pivoted
his strategy to accept—and, well, pursue—
the one-and-dones that Duke previously
stayed away from. It helped that Bagley Jr
grew up in the Durham area (though the
fact that the family had been living in
sunny California should’ve also given an
edge to local USC and UCLA), and it dou-
bly helped that Coach K told Bagley III he
could wear his preferred No. 35, despite
it being retired as Duke legend Danny
Ferry’s former number.
“Hearing the coaches talk to me about
how I play and how I could get on the
court and fit in with the team, I feel like it
was a great fit for me,” Bagley III says. He
visited the school for the first time as a
ninth grader, and had been back a couple
times since then. “I just love the environ-
ment here—it’s a calm place, and I feel
like I’m going to be around people who
want to accomplish high goals like me, so
there probably won’t be any distractions.
Just a perfect fit for me.
“I want to win the National Champion-
ship,” he adds. “That’s the only reason I
play—to win. That’s my main goal.”
It’ll be plenty interesting to see how
Duke squeezes Bagley III into what was
already an exciting roster—he’ll likely play
a lot of minutes alongside Carter Jr,
another talented big man with a very
similar skillset. But there isn’t much
reason to worry. Over the summer, Bagley
III hooped in the Drew League, facing up
against grown men such as current and
former NBAers DeMar DeRozan, JaVale
McGee, Julius Randle and Baron Davis.
He dropped 32 points and grabbed 11
rebounds in a contest against DeRozan,
and put up an 18 and 20 performance in
the league’s all-star game.
Of course one or two impressive
performances during a summer league
doesn’t exactly guarantee a long, fruitful
career, but it’s hard to doubt Bagley III is on
the right path, a path that began sometime
around first grade and doesn’t appear to
be coming to a halt anytime soon. NBA
teams are eagerly waiting for his name to
be available in 2018, and whichever team
selects him next June will have a legion
of fans eagerly waiting for him to hit the
court. In the meantime, he’s got a season
at Duke to show and prove to the few who
might not be sold just yet.
“Every time I’m on the court, that’s on
my mind: Be the best player you can be,”
he says. “I put so much into this game
that it’s hard for me to not want to do
that. I work hard every day, and I just
feel that I want to be the best at it. If you
don’t want to be the best, then there’s no
need to play.” S
SL AMONLINE.COM 57
P R E V I E W
MISSOURI FRESHMAN MICHAEL PORTER JR
IS THE POTENTIAL NO. 1 PICK IN NEXT YEAR’S NBA DRAFT,
BUT BEFORE HE TAKES OFF FOR THE LEAGUE, HE’LL BE JOINING
HIS BROTHER, TWO SISTERS, FATHER AND AUNT AT MIZZOU
WITH HOPES OF TURNING THE TIGERS PROGRAM AROUND.
W O R D S F R A N K L Y N C A L L E

P O R T R A I T S J O N A T H A N Z I Z Z O

SL AMONLINE.COM 59
P R E V I E W
I
I T ’ S A T U E S D AY afternoon in early
September and Michael Porter Jr is en-
joying the tranquility of a deserted Mizzou
Arena while sitting by himself, courtside.
The stands are completely empty and
the bright lights that usually illuminate
the 15,000-seat facility from the rafters
are off. Dark and quiet, the only hint of
light inside comes from the sunset glare
brimming through the large glass panels
on the sides of the arched-roof façade.
Although the natural light fails to
reach the hardwood floor and lower seat-
ing bowl, it does shine over a portion of
the upper deck. Porter, looking up while
sitting to the left of the scorer’s table,
notices the coincidental angle in which
the sunlight comes in.
He begins smiling while pointing to
an upper corner of the arena, where the
sun’s reflection shines brightly on a wall,
illuminating a couple of signs that bring
back clear memories of 2010.
That’s the year Porter first set foot in
the arena.
“THERE IS SOME PRESSURE
SOMETIMES—LIVING UP TO THE HYPE—
BUT HONESTLY I KNOW IF I KEEP
WORKING THEN THERE’S NO ONE THAT
CAN STAND IN FRONT OF MY PATH.”
— P O R T E R
60 SL AMONLINE.COM
“I remember sitting all the way up
there in section 208 with two strangers
sitting next to me,” Porter says. “Since
my dad worked here, we’d get free tickets
and I would come by myself sometimes.
I remember coming to these games and
Mizzou Arena was packed.”
Porter’s dad, Michael Sr, accepted a
Director of Basketball Operations position
with the Mizzou women’s basketball pro-
gram in 2010. And so the family relocated
from Indianapolis, IN, to Columbia, MO,
just as Porter Jr wrapped up fifth grade.
He wasn’t feeling the move at first.
Like the majority of his seven other
siblings, Porter Jr was homeschooled up
until high school. And so the challenge
with relocating at that age wasn’t nec-
essarily about adjusting to a new school
system, new teachers or new classmates.
Instead, unlike in the Indy area—a hotbed
for basketball—finding friends through
hoops in Columbia turned out to be very
challenging.
“It took a couple of years for it to feel
like home—to meet new friends, because
I was homeschooled,” he recalls. “Back
home my friends were my basketball
friends and then coming here, there
wasn’t too many basketball players in the
area. So I found myself alone a lot. But
then that also worked to my advantage
because I found myself in the gym a lot
because I didn’t have many friends. That
was a tough adjustment, but eventually
Columbia became home.”
While Columbia didn’t have the same
kind of hoops culture that Indiana offered, will. He’d shadow the team around the fa-
with his dad on staff, Porter Jr did have cilities, experience the home game atmo-
access to Mizzou’s facilities, basically at sphere from section 208, and would work
on his jumper on the arena’s hardwood.
“I was able to come here whenever I
wanted to, really. The strength coach for
the women’s team would put me through
some strength training at a very young
age,” he says. “I was able to get in here
and shoot on the gun. I remember shoot-
ing a thousand shots a night. I just loved
it. I loved basketball. I couldn’t think of
anything better. I felt like I had everything
here to reach my goals.”
One night—while still in the sixth
grade—after Porter Jr finished his usual
J R shooting workout at the arena, then-
Mizzou men’s head coach Frank Haith of-
fered him a scholarship on the spot. Only
fitting that the Tigers would become the
first D1 program to offer
him a scholarship, right?
But his journey to wearing a Tigers
uniform was anything but a simple one.
The hometown hero will suit up for the
state school this season only after initially
committing to playing for Washington in the
Pac-12. That was until a series of March
events led him back to where it all began.
After three years as Director of Basket-
ball Operations, Michael Sr was promoted
to assistant coach of the women’s team
at Mizzou in 2013. The following year, the
oldest of the eight Porter siblings, Bri (a
6-3 forward), joined the Tigers’ program.
In 2015, Cierra, a 6-4 forward and the
second oldest Porter sibling, also joined
the Tigers. With dad on the bench and Bri
and Cierra on the floor, the Porter family
appeared to be on their way to a full-blown
Missouri hoops takeover.
“We’ve been naturally gifted and realize
that you can make change if you have a
platform, and basketball is a great plat-
form,” Cierra says. “That’s what drives us.”
Meanwhile, after being homeschooled
up to that point, Porter Jr enrolled in
Columbia’s Father Tolton Regional
Catholic HS for ninth grade in 2013. There
he led Tolton to its first basketball state
title as a junior, averaging 28.5 points, 11.8
rebounds and 3.4 assists that season.
But in 2016 a new opportunity was
presented to Michael Sr. Washington
head coach Lorenzo Romar offered him
an assistant coaching position with the
Huskies’ men’s basketball program in
Seattle. Senior ultimately decided to
accept the offer and the Porters found
themselves relocating once again.
Romar and Michael Sr had actually
known each other since the 1980s, when
the two were teammates for Athletes In
Action, the sports arm of Cru (then called
Campus Crusade for Christ) a non-profit,
non-denominational ministry organiza-
tion. Romar eventually became Porter Jr’s
godfather years later.
While Bri and Cierra stayed put in
Columbia, Porter Jr transferred to Nathan
Hale HS in the Emerald City for his senior
year and committed to the Washington
Huskies soon after.
In Seattle, Nathan Hale had just hired
former NBA All-Star Brandon Roy as
its new head coach. Joining MPJ at the
school was his younger brother, Jontay,
who was coming in as an 11th grader, and
their younger brother, Coban, who was
entering his freshman year.
The prior season, Nathan Hale had
a dismal 3-18 record, but with MPJ and
Jontay (who was a top-30 national recruit
in his class and had committed to the
SL AMONLINE.COM 61
P R E V I E W
Lisa, Jevon, Cierra,
Michael Jr, Izaak, Bri,
Jayda, Jontay, Coban
and Michael Sr.
Huskies for 2018) coming in, and with Roy
bringing in other pieces like top-50 Class
of 2019 recruit PJ Fuller, expectations
were high.
The results? Nathan Hale went unde-
feated for the season, finishing 29-0 while
capturing the state title and the No. 1 spot
on MaxPreps’ national team rankings. The
sharp-shooting MPJ averaged a ridiculous
36.2 points, 13.6 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 3.2
steals and 2.7 blocks, ultimately earning
National Player of the Year accolades.
While the Porter brothers enjoyed a
perfect season, their father had a com-
pletely different experience at Washington
in his first year. The Huskies went 9-22,
losing a school record 13 straight games
and finishing 11th in the Pac-12 with a
2-16 record in conference play—missing
out on the NCAA Tournament for a sixth
consecutive year. The tough season ulti-
mately cost Romar his job at Washington,
where he coached for 15 years.
Call it fate or pure coincidence but on
the very same day that Romar was fired
at Washington—March 15—Mizzou an-
nounced the hiring of Cuonzo Martin, who
had just resigned as Cal’s head coach a
few hours earlier. Mizzou had fired head
coach Ken Anderson just 10 days prior.
And so with MPJ’s godfather no longer
at the helm, the Porters saw no reason
to remain committed to the Huskies and
thus found themselves looking for a new
home immediately.
After some talks with Martin, both
Michael Jr and Michael Sr had announced
62 SL AMONLINE.COM
that they were coming home—returning
to Columbia to join the Mizzou men’s
basketball program. Two months later,
Jontay announced that he’d do the same
by reclassifying to the Class of 2017.
The grand return to Columbia is a
family reunion of all sorts. Bri and Cierra
are now in their junior and senior years,
respectively, and still members of the
women’s basketball team, while MPJ,
Jontay and Michael Sr (men’s assistant
coach) will look to take care of business
on the men’s side for the Tigers.
Oh, and for those keeping score of the
Porter family tree within the Missouri
program, you can add Robin Pingeton, the
women’s basketball head coach, to the
list. She’s the Porter siblings’ aunt—sister
of their mother, Lisa.
“It’s been surreal so far,” Jontay says
of his first month on campus with his
brother and sisters. “Not everyone has
the opportunity to be in college with three
other siblings. So it’s a once in a lifetime
opportunity.”
Adds Bri, “This is probably our last
year all in one place, kind of living life
together, and so that’s what we talk
about. The basketball [side], everyone ob-
viously has an expectation to succeed and
excel in that area, but I think what we’ve
focused on more is having fun together.”
MPJ and company will look to turn
around a program that hasn’t been able
to surpass 10 wins in each of the last
three seasons. The team has also failed
to get more than three wins in confer-
ence play in each of those three years.
DAV ID B A N K S /G E T T Y IM AG ES
The Tigers haven’t been to the NCAA
Tournament in four years and haven’t
been able to get out of the first round
of the Big Dance since the 2009-10
campaign.
“As time went on, the men’s team
just wasn’t what they used to be,” MPJ

“WHEN I LEFT SEATTLE AND COMMITTED
HERE, I WAS REALLY JUST LOOKING
TO RENEW THE MIZZOU ATMOSPHERE THAT
I KNEW WAS POSSIBLE. I VIEWED IT
AS GOD PUTTING THE PIECES IN FOR
ME TO COME BACK HERE.”
— P O R T E R
says, comparing the last few years of the
program to when he first sat in section
208 in 2010. “The crowds just got small-
er and smaller until this past year they
didn’t really have too much of a crowd
at games. And so when I left Seattle and
committed here, I was really just looking
to renew the Mizzou atmosphere that I
knew was possible. Coming back here, it
was basically a dream come true. I kind
of viewed it as God putting the pieces
in for me to come back here. It was the
perfect situation.”
If anyone has recent experience in
J R
turning around a program it’s MPJ, who,
along with Jontay, helped flip Nathan
Hale into the No. 1 team in the country
just a year after the Raiders won three
games in the whole season. And Porter Jr
already sees some similarities between
his new team and his old one.
“The thing about Nathan Hale is
Brandon [Roy] was the coach and he
brought people in with him to play with
us, and I kind of view this as the same
situation,” Porter Jr says. “It wasn’t just
me turning that program around. Brandon
had other players coming with him—and
so here, after I committed, I was able to
pull in more pieces with me.”
He’s referring to top-50 recruit
Jeremiah Tilmon, a former Illinois commit,
and top-100 recruit Blake Harris, a former
Washington commit, who both agreed to
join the Tigers this spring after MPJ came
on board. When you add Jontay to the mix,
that’s four top-100 recruits that Mizzou
welcomed just this fall.
With many considering MPJ a candi-
date for the No. 1 pick in the 2018 NBA
Draft, mostly due to his super versatile
scoring arsenal and deadly shooting
touch from just about every corner on the
floor—leading to plenty of Kevin Durant
comparisons—there are some very high
hopes this season in Columbia and be-
yond for the freshman stud.
If you ask Porter Jr, though, none of
those expectations mean too much.
“For me, I don’t really try to impress
anyone. I honestly play for God and then
I play for myself,” MPJ says. “I have my
own standards of how I should play. It’s
never for anybody else. It’s because I’ve
been given a gift and I want to show it—
but I don’t do it for other people, I do it for
myself. There is some pressure some-
times—living up to the hype—but honestly
I know if I keep working then there’s no
one that can stand in front of my path.” S
SL AMONLINE.COM 63
 P R E V I E W

R E Y D EL R I O/G E T T Y IM AG E S
SOPHOMORE MILES BRIDGES’ DECISION
TO RETURN TO MICHIGAN STATE INSTEAD
OF DECLARING FOR THE DRAFT CAME AS
A SURPRISE. NOW, HE’LL LEAD A DEEP,
EXPERIENCED SPARTANS TEAM PRIMED
TO MAKE A TRIP TO THE 2018 FINAL FOUR.
B Y P E T E R W A L S H
T
T H E M I C H I G A N S TAT E S PA R TA N S
finished last season with a 20-15 record
and a second round exit in the 2017
NCAA Tournament. For most schools, this
would have been considered a successful
season, but not in East Lansing, where
anything short of reaching the Final Four
is a disappointment.
Under legendary head coach Tom Izzo,
Michigan State is a perennial power-
house, churning out pro players and
victories over the top programs in college
basketball. The ’16-17 season was the
team’s worst since 2010-11, when the
Spartans went 19-15. But in April, the
team and school got a dose of good news.
Miles Bridges was coming back for his
sophomore year.
Bridges, a 6-7, 230 pound guard/for-
ward who can jump out of the gym, was
thought to be a one-and-done freshman.
He shocked most of the basketball world
when he announced his return.
“The main reason I came back was
because I wrote my goals down when I
was young and one of them was to win a
National Championship,” Bridges says. “I
didn’t want to go back on my goals. I
knew we had a great team coming back
and I knew I had to lead the team.”
Along with Missouri’s Michael Porter Jr
(pg. 58) and Duke’s Marvin Bagley III
(pg. 52), Miles Bridges is in the conver-
sation to potentially be the best player
in college basketball this upcoming
season. As a freshman, Bridges averaged
16.9 points, 8.3 boards, 2.1 assists and
1.5 blocks on 48.6 percent field-goal
shooting and 38.9 percent from behind
the arc. He was the first freshman to
lead the Spartans in scoring since Shawn
Respert did it during the 1991-92 season,
was named Big Ten Freshman of the
Year, was a finalist for the Karl Malone
Award, and was named to the All-Big Ten
Second Team.
Capable of playing in the post or on
the perimeter, Bridges is at his best when
he’s on the break. He had more than a few
Yo, I gotta check Twitter or IG immediately
to see that over and over again dunks
last year, and with a crowded frontcourt
that will cause him to play on the wing
more this upcoming season, expect to
see Bridges flying down the court and
putting plenty of opponents on posters.
“I had to really work on my conditioning
[this offseason] because I’m going to be
playing the wing spot and doing a lot of
running,” he says.
The super-talented Bridges grew up in
Flint, MI, before heading east to close out
his high school career at West Virginia’s
Huntington Prep. He grew up admiring
the late-’00s and early ’10s Michigan
State teams that featured Draymond
Green, Kalin Lucas and Adreian Payne,
but Bridges is well aware of the pro-
gram’s deep history and affiliation with
his hometown. The 19-year-old joins the
likes of Charlie Bell, Morris Peterson and
Mateen Cleaves (aka “The Flintstones”)
as Flint hoopers who stayed local to
attend MSU.
“Flint produces tough basketball
players,” Bridges says. “There’s open
gyms with no fouls. The reason I became
as good as I am is because I used to play
with older kids and get mad over fouls.
They would tell me, ‘You’re not getting
that call, you gotta be tougher.’
“I’m tight with Mo Pete, Charlie and all
the players who went to Michigan State. I
grew up watching Michigan State—that’s
how I really fell in love with basketball.”
With Bridges back in the fold, the
Spartans enter the season as Big Ten
favorites, a top-5 team in the nation (they
rank No. 2 in the SLAM NCAA men’s rank-
ings) and will undoubtedly be in
the mix for a Final Four berth. Along
with Miles, the team returns guards
Cassius Winston, Josh Langford
and Tum Tum Nairn Jr along with big
man Nick Ward, and they’re welcoming
Jaren Jackson Jr, a consensus top-10
recruit and potential top-10 pick in next
year’s draft. Save for Jackson, the team
has been through an up-and-down season
together and are as battle tested as any
squad in college hoops.
“We faced a lot of adversity and I feel
like it’s something that’s going to really
help us for this year,” Bridges says. “The
main lesson is, all the little things count.
One rebound can win you a game, and a
missed rebound can lose you a game. It’s
the little things that count in college.”
Before he bounces for the lavish life-
style that the NBA provides, Bridges has a
chance to make his mark and become one
of the best players in Michigan State his-
tory—no small feat considering the talent
that has passed through the university.
“I really love Michigan State basket-
ball, and for me to be a key piece of this
program is an honor,” he says. “It’s a
blessing and I give all the glory to God
for that. As a young kid from Flint, I never
thought that I’d be in this position. It is an
honor for me.” S
SL AMONLINE.COM 65
What If Nick Anderson
Made One Of
Those Free Throws?
S H E A S E R R A N O ’s new book, Basketball (And Other Things), is a hilarious,
informative group of passages that answers questions you never realized
needed to be asked. Here’s an excerpt, in which Shea provides a fascinating
hypothetical: What if Orlando Magic guard Nick Anderson drained
just one of those four freebies at the end of Game 1 of the ’95 Finals?

I L L U S T R A T I O N S B Y A R T U R O T O R R E S

A
T THE END OF the 1995 NBA Finals, Jim Gray
interviewed Nick Anderson, shooting guard for
the Orlando Magic. The Magic had lost the series
four games to no games to the Houston Rockets,
who’d repeated as champions, and so Gray want-
ed to ask Anderson about that, but really he just
wanted to ask him about the end of Game 1.
The championship series that year was mostly an unremark-
able one, save for the first game, which remains an all-timer.
The Magic, overwhelmingly talented1 but still very young,2 built
1. Shaq, Penny Hardaway, Nick Anderson, Dennis Scott, Horace Grant, Brian Shaw.
2. I mean this as far as the players go (Shaq and Penny, the team’s two best players, were both 23), but also in relation to the franchise
(it was only in its sixth season of existence).
3. This is according to Inpredictable.com’s Win Probability Calculator.
4. Following the 1996 season, the Magic didn’t make it out of the first round of the playoffs for 12 years, and five of those years they
didn’t make the playoffs at all.
5. A neat little note: Nick Anderson was actually the very first pick that the Orlando Magic ever made. They drafted him 11th in 1989.
up an early 20-point lead at home, only to give it all back later
in the game. The fourth quarter was taut and perfect; no team
had a lead larger than four points in the final six minutes. The
Rockets’s Kenny Smith hit a very contested three with just
under two seconds to go, which sent the game into overtime,
and then Hakeem Olajuwon won it in overtime by tipping in an
errant Clyde Drexler layup with 0.3 second left. All most anyone
remembers from that game, though, is what happened right
before Kenny Smith’s three.
The Magic had the ball and were up three with 55 seconds
left in the game. After a bit of stalling, Penny Hardaway drove
into the lane and missed a layup. Horace Grant grabbed the
offensive rebound and dribbled it out so the Magic offense could
reset itself (37 seconds left). The Magic ran down the clock a bit
more, then Brian Shaw fired up a three-pointer. It missed. But
Grant, banging around in the paint again, got just enough of his
fingers on it to deflect the ball over to Penny (20 seconds left).
Penny threw it out to Nick Anderson, and then Anderson and
Brian Shaw and Penny played keep-away with the ball until the
Rockets were able to foul Nick Anderson a few seconds later,
sending him to the line (10.5 seconds left).
At that exact moment, the Magic had a game win probability
of 98.5 percent.3 Then all of the trees and birds and humans
and animals in Orlando died.
Anderson short-armed his first free throw. It clanked off
the front of the rim. The second free throw was even shorter,
ricocheting back toward Anderson. After the ball was batted
around some, Anderson managed to secure the rebound and
was fouled again (7.9 seconds left). And at that exact moment,
the Magic had an overall game win probability of 99.0 percent.
“How can you expect to win an NBA Finals game if you . . .can’t
get a rebound after a really tough player like Nick Anderson
misses two free throws?” Bill Walton, a large set of teeth acting
as a commentator for the game, asked exasperatedly.
Nick Anderson settled in to shoot his third free throw. This
time it was too long, and when the camera zoomed in on his
face after the miss he was fake-smiling to himself and everyone
knew right then that not only was there no chance he was going
to make that next free throw, but that we were all watching a
potentially legacy-altering, history-shaping meltdown, and that’s
exactly what happened. Anderson missed that fourth free throw,
the Rockets (fucking finally) rebounded the ball, Kenny hit his
three, Hakeem hit his game-winner, and the Magic never recov-
ered. They lost the series, Shaq signed with LA 13 months later,
Penny’s knees turned into bubble gum, and everything went dark.4
But so that’s why when Jim Gray was interviewing Nick
Anderson after the Magic lost the series;5 he wanted to ask him
about those free throws. He said, “Would it have been a differ-
ence had you made one of those free throws back in Game 1?”
And Nick, who, for my money, only ever handled the situation
like a hero, stood right there and considered the notion and then
said, “Yeah, maybe it would’ve. But, uh, yeah, I can’t think about
that. That’s in the past. Can’t change what happened.”6
SL AMONLINE.COM 67
68 SL AMONLINE.COM
Here’s the thing of it, though: We can change what happened. At
least, we can change it here anyway. So let’s do that. What hap-
pens—how are things different—if Nick Anderson makes those
free throws? How is the NBA different after that?
What happens in the Finals that year?
The Magic players talked a bunch later about how that Game 1
loss sapped them of their confidence. So let’s assume the
inverse is true, too: Let’s say that Nick hit at least one of those
first two free throws, and so they won that game, and so then
they’d have really been feeling themselves. Then someone
would’ve leaned in their ear and told them that home teams
who win Game 1 of a best-of-seven series end up winning the
series 85 percent of the time, and so then they’d have been feel-
ing themselves even further. So then they’re feeling unbeatable,
which is what they become. They end up winning the Finals 4–2.
(I can’t say it’d have been a 4–0 sweep in their favor because
even in a dream imaginary scenario with all of the knobs and
levers turned to your favor, 1995 Hakeem Olajuwon is still going
to beat you twice.) So the Magic win the 1995 championship.
And if that happens, then the whole NBA as we know it today
gets turned upside down.
Like what? How do you mean?
Well, there’s an ESPN documentary that came out in 2016
called This Magic Moment that was all about how the Magic
came within earshot of becoming a dynasty before watching it
wash away.7 As the credits roll at the end of it, Shaq and Penny
are sitting in deck chairs by a pool talking about things. During
their conversation, Shaq says that if Orlando had won a title,
he’d have never left. So there’s that: Shaq stays with the Magic.
And since we’re rewriting pieces of history, let’s go ahead
right now and erase the parts where injuries stole Penny
Hardaway’s career. That means you’ve got a young and healthy
Penny Hardaway, an unbroken Nick Anderson, an unflappable
role player in Dennis Scott, a seasoned winner in Horace Grant,
a wonderful basketball mind in Brian Shaw, and a not-yet-to-
his-prime-but-already-dominant Shaq. And those guys all get
to stay together for several years after having won a champi-
onship? Shit, man. It’s murder for the rest of the ’90s and early
2000s.
Yeah, but what about Jordan? He was all the way back
from his retirement by then. And the Bulls swept the
Magic out of the playoffs in 1996 in the version of the NBA
that we know as true today. What happens there?
That’s fair. But if the Magic didn’t lose to the Rockets in 1995, I
can’t say for certain that the Bulls would’ve beaten the Magic
in 1996. I’m just not quite sure how that series plays out,
especially when you consider that the Magic knocked the Bulls
out of the playoffs in 1995.8 And, I mean, sure, that was the first
year Jordan was back from his retirement and he only played
in 17 games before the playoffs started so you can argue that
he was not the fully formed Jordan that nobody could beat,
but it still happened. We can’t just ignore that. But, okay, let’s
go conservative: Let’s say the Bulls did beat the Magic in 1996.
They probably would’ve beaten the Magic in 1997, too (the Bulls
were so good in 1996 that when they went 69–13 in 1997 it was
somehow a regression). But let’s at the very least give the 1998
championship to the Magic. That opens up a whole bunch of
interesting doors, too.
Like what?
Well, let’s jump back a bit first. So the Magic win the 1995
championship. Shaq falls in love with the way being a champi-
on paints him, and so all of his side projects (the rapping, the
acting, etc.) all get pushed aside as he tries to chase down more
rings. That means that the leading role in Kazaam is open. And
Hakeem, distraught from having lost the 1995 title and looking
to boost his own signal, picks it up. So, boom, behind Shaq
staying in Orlando, there’s the next major thing that happens:
We get Hakeem Olajuwon as Kazaam.
WHAT?
I know, right?
What else?
If the Magic get the 1998 championship then that means Jordan
only gets five championships instead of six, and so all of a
sudden his accepted status as the Greatest of All Time starts to
get a little bit grayer.
What about Kobe? We’re basically replacing Kobe and
Shaq with Penny and Shaq. What happens to Kobe?
There are probably two ways that that situation plays out.
The first is that Vlade Divac, who the Lakers traded to
Charlotte to get the rights to Kobe, decides he doesn’t want to
play in Charlotte. In January of 2016 he said he’d contemplated
retiring when his agent told him that the Lakers had traded
him to Charlotte. And so if that had happened, then: (1) Kobe
plays for Charlotte,9 which would’ve been a real disaster.10 Kobe
probably ends up with a career closer to, say, Tracy McGrady’s
or Vince Carter’s. (2) We don’t get the 2002 Sacramento Kings
(Webber, Vlade, Bibby, Peja, Doug, Jackson), and let me tell you
something: You can get fucked if you think I want to live in any
branch of reality that doesn’t include the 2002 Kings.
The second is that Vlade says, “Okay, fine, I’ll play in Char-
lotte,” then goes to Charlotte.11 The Lakers get Kobe but they
don’t get Shaq, and so that means Kobe definitely isn’t finish-
ing with five rings. Here’s the cool thing, though: Rather than
teaming up with Pau, Kobe calls Kevin Garnett in the summer
of 2007, tells him he’s sick of losing and also tired of seeing
KG lose, and convinces KG to make the move to LA instead of
Boston for the 2008 season, so we get at least three seasons

6. By two seasons after the missed free throws, Anderson’s free throw percentage plummeted from 70 percent to 40 percent.
7. How unlikely was the formation of that championship-caliber Magic team? The Magic not only had to win the number-one overall
pick two years in a row to get there (they drafted Shaq with the 1992 pick; they had a 1/66 chance of winning the number-one pick in
1993), but they also had to be lucky/smart/dumb enough to trade Chris Webber, who was their number-one pick in 1993, for Penny
Hardaway (and three first-round draft picks).
8. The defining play of that series also happened in Game 1 and also involved Nick Anderson, though his role in it was philosophically
the exact opposite of his role in the Rockets Game 1 disaster: The Magic were down by one with 18 seconds left in Game 1. Anderson,
guarding Michael Jordan, was able to poke the ball away from him, leading to a game-winning basket from Horace Grant.

SL AMONLINE.COM 69
of Kobe and KG together, which is like
if you put a sun right next to another
sun. That’s good for two champion-
ships, maybe three. Of course, just as
likely is that the Kobe/KG partnership
turns toxic real quick and ends with
zero titles for them and so then Kobe
becomes Carmelo before Carmelo
becomes Carmelo.
And all of that means the cham-
pionships for 2000, 2001, and 2002
are definitely all up for grabs since
the Shaq/Kobe Lakers aren’t around
to win them, and the 2008, 2009, and
2010 championships are possibly also
up for grabs since the Celtics don’t
have Garnett to help them win in 2008
and Kobe doesn’t have Pau to help him
win in 2009 and 2010.
Who gets those?
The Magic beat the Trail Blazers 4–2 to win the 2000 champion-
ship, giving Shaq and Penny their third title together. (They cap
off an amazing Game 7 fourth-quarter comeback when Penny
throws an alley-oop to Shaq to put the game out of reach.) The
Spurs beat the Sixers 4–3 to win the 2001 championship. (Allen
Iverson steps over Avery Johnson.) The Kings beat the Nets 4–0
to win the 2002 championship. (Vlade Divac gives an all-world
petty postgame interview where he talks about how none of
anything would’ve been possible without the Lakers trading him
to the Hornets for Kobe.) The Pistons beat the Pelicans 4–2 in
2008 (the lowest-rated Finals in history). The Magic (this time
with Dwight Howard) beat the Nuggets 4–3 in 2009 (people
start to talk about how Dwight vs. Carmelo is the next big rival-
ry because people are stupid). And the Cavs (!) beat the Lakers
(!!) 4–3 (!!!) in 2010 (the highest-rated Finals in history).
with my heart, Rose. Will you catch
it?”), Good Will Hunting starring Robin
Williams and Latrell Sprewell (there’s
still the scene where Robin Williams’s
character chokes Matt Damon’s char-
acter, except this time it’s Williams
choking Latrell and so everyone gets
a big kick out of that), Boogie Nights
starring Patrick Ewing (Pat Riley gets
used for Burt Reynolds’s part), The
Devil’s Advocate starring Al Pacino
and Shawn Bradley (a total box-
office bomb because Bradley decides
halfway into the movie that Pacino
actually really is the devil and so he
refuses to film any of the remaining
scenes with him so half of the movie
is CGI’d), Face/Off starring Keith Van
Horn and Kerry Kittles (shoutout the
Jason Kidd–era Nets), Armageddon
starring Reggie Miller, American His-
tory X starring Steve Kerr (Kerr gives a rousing performance
as a reformed Nazi), and Rush Hour starring Shawn Kemp
and Dennis Rodman (shamed by everyone because Rodman
decides he’s only doing the movie if the studio lets him do so in
yellowface, which it does).
Holdonasecond. You’re telling me that if Nick Anderson
had made one of those four free throws, we’d have all
ended up seeing Patrick Ewing’s dick? That’s what you’re
telling me?
That’s exactly what I’m telling you.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
I suppose that depends entirely on whether or not you are pro–
Patrick Ewing’s dick or anti–Patrick Ewing’s dick.

What happened with Hakeem’s acting career, though? It
seems like you didn’t talk enough about that. Were there
any ripple effects from that?
With Hakeem at the lead, Kazaam, regarded now as basura,
is an international smash success. Everyone loves it. Kazaam
2: This Time Call Me Hazaam is an even bigger hit. It sets into
motion a two-year period where movie studios plug in basical-
ly any NBA player they can get into any movie that’ll let them.
We get Titanic starring Kate Winslet and Jason “White Choc-
olate” Williams (the scene where Jack and Rose go to a party
in the bowels of the ship and dance gets replaced with a scene
where Jack and Rose go to a 2-on-2 tournament in the bowels
of the ship; Jack gives an Oscar-worthy speech to Rose where
he delivers the iconic line “I’m throwing you a no-look pass
That’s fair. So what’s the tally?
Where are we right now in this Nick-Anderson-Makes-A-Free-
Throw version of the universe? To this point: The Magic win the
1995 championship; Shaq stays in Orlando and he and Penny
win three titles together; Hakeem Olajuwon does Kazaam,
which vibrates out into Hollywood massively; Jordan wins five
titles instead of six and his legacy isn’t as guaranteed as it is
now;12 Kobe possibly wins two titles instead of five but probably
actually wins zero; Duncan wins six titles instead of five; Chris
Webber gets a ring (hooray!) but so does Dwight Howard
(boooooooo!); Carmelo makes a Finals; we get LeBron vs. Kobe
in an NBA Finals Game 7, which LeBron wins, which means he
never goes to Miami; and everyone sees Patrick Ewing’s dick. All
if Nick Anderson makes one of those free throws. S

9. Or the Nets. The Nets really wanted to draft him with the eighth pick that year. They were warned against it since he wanted to get to
Los Angeles once he heard Jerry West wanted to trade Vlade for the pick to get him. The Lakers don’t trade Vlade if Shaq never leaves
Orlando, though.
10. Their roster that season: Rafael Addison, Muggsy Bogues, Scott Burrell, Tom Chambers, Dell Curry, Tony Delk, Jamie Feick, Matt
Geiger, Anthony Goldwire, Eric Leckner, Anthony Mason, Ricky Pierce, Glen Rice, Malik Rose, Donald Royal, Tony Smith, and George Zidek.
The five names italicized there are big white guys. Five big white guys is way too many big white guys to have on a team hoping to win a
title in the mid-to-late ’90s and beyond.
11. Vlade says it was Jerry West who talked him into going to Charlotte rather than retiring.
12. Thinking about Jordan with only five championships is somehow the weirdest part of this whole thing.

70 SL AMONLINE.COM
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October 27, $130

72 SL AMONLINE.COM
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SL AMONLINE.COM 73
KICKS
4:44
The UNDER ARMOUR
CURRY 4 is the Warriors’
superstar’s hottest look yet.
G
A M E 1 O F T H E 2017 Finals
hadn’t even tipped off, but the
Twitter and Instagram machine
was already roaring. Images
of the super clean, super sleek
Under Armour Curry 4 were flooding in
from everywhere.
Neither Stephen nor UA had announced
that the new sneaker would be unveiled
for the Finals. But the surprise worked.
People couldn’t believe how nice the white
and gold 4s were.
“I was excited and nervous at the same
time,” Curry 4 designer Kort Neumann re-
74 S L A M O N L I N E . C O M
members. “He was gonna first wear them
in the Finals. That’s pretty big.”
Neumann’s sneaker was ready for the
moment. The 4s marked a turning point
for his design team, in both construction
and composition.
Everything is brand new for Curry’s
latest silhouette, starting with the one-
piece Speed Plate that addresses mid-foot
stiffness and lateral containment by transi-
tioning from the medial arch to the lateral
forefoot. After figuring out the Speed Plate,
Neumann created a new lightweight pro-
prietary foam technology for the midsole,
F R O M L E F T: C O U R T E S Y O F U N D E R A R M O U R ; R YA N Y O U N G ; C O U R T E S Y O F C O N V E R S E
a pivot from UA’s tried and true Charged
Cushioning system.
It all leads up to the 4’s knitted upper.
That upper, featuring hits of synthetic for
reinforcement, is made with a yarn that
is stronger and silkier than anything UA’s
done before. It stretches for comfort and it
retains rigidity under stress.
“Ultimately, [the 4] is an expression of
our study in minimalism,” Neumann says.
“That really came from Stephen. That’s
where the aesthetic comes from, just him
wanting that holistic fit, making the shoe
feel like a second foot.” —Max Resetar

Ankle Bully
BIG BALLER BRAND had everyone talking again
when it announced that LaMelo Ball, the youngest
brother in the Ball family, was getting his own signa-
ture sneaker—the MB1.
A
F T E R S H O C K I N G T H E world by revealing that Lonzo Ball
would be the first player ever to enter the League with an inde-
pendently made signature sneaker, Big Baller Brand managed to
send even more shockwaves in late August when it unveiled the
MB1s, LaMelo Ball’s signature kicks, in an exclusive SLAM video.
The 16-year-old prodigy, and the youngest of the three Ball brothers, be-
came the first HS prospect in history to have his own signature silhouette.
Just a junior at Chino Hills (CA) HS, the 6-3 guard turned into a
household name last season thanks to his half-court jumpers and
jaw-dropping scoring outbursts—including the memorable 92-point per-
formance that brought Melo from internet sensation to the mainstream.
The low-cut MB1 features a two-tone woven textile with a camou-
flaged one-piece knit upper. The red heel, black upper and tongue are
all made of suede material. The tongue has a distinctively thin layer,
which provides Melo with less weight and more freedom around his
ankles. The MB1 comes in priced at $395 and is slated to reach homes
during the holiday season. 
In the reveal video, the youngest to ever do it cleverly exhibits his
new kicks in a basket full of cherries—a jab at critics who have steadily
hated on his notoriety and playing style by calling him a “cherry picker.”
The video also shows him driving a brand new Lamborghini, which
Melo’s dad, LaVar, gifted him for his 16th birthday. Soon after the
video hit the web, NBA players like Kevin Durant, Jayson Tatum and
Kyle Kuzma took to social media to give Melo props for the historic
announcement. Playing by their own rules with an array of unprecedent-
ed moves, BBB continues to raise eyebrows while the industry monitors
closely. —Franklyn Calle
Since Day 1
CONVERSE has been down with the
NBA for over 70 years and is honor-
ing the relationship with a collection
of styles highlighting the League’s
marquee franchises.
C
O N V E R S E ’ S R E L AT I O N S H I P with
the NBA goes back to the beginning. The
OGs on the Knicks and Lakers rocked the
Star in 1946 during the Basketball Associ-
ation of America’s inaugural season. Both
the League and Converse have grown considerably
in the 71 years since, and the two understand their
iconic status in both basketball and sneakers.
To honor the deep bond between the old part-
ners, Converse is releasing the NBA Chuck Taylor
All Star 70 collection, made up of three styles.
Dubbed the “Gameday,” the “Legend” and the
“Franchise,” the kicks pay tribute to fans and their
teams alike. Five of the most storied franchises get
a “Legend” makeup. For the Celtics version, an
embossed “17” in Roman numerals gives props to
the franchise’s historic title count. The Bulls
sneaker pays homage to Chicago fans who brave
Windy City winters with an interior lining. The
“Gameday” joints are made with authentic NBA
jersey material, while the “Legend” versions get
the premium leather treatment. Rounding out the
trio is the “Franchise,” which is made out of
swingman jerseys.
Ranging in prices from $100 to $250, the
collaboration features other key team details like a
“Once a Knick, Always a Knicks” design, chrome
and silver accents to honor the lights of Hollywood,
and Bay Bridge-inspired embroidery. All of the
sneakers have EVA foam in the midsole to provide
a nice cushioning. The finishing touch is the NBA
logo that sits proudly on the inner tongue of each
“Legend” colorway. —MR
SL AMONLINE.COM 75
The Way Life Goes
Having just led Canada to its first gold medal
in international competition, Class of 2018
recruit RJ BARRETT is ready to take the
torch as The North’s next hoops star.

A
MONTH AFTER
leading Team Canada
to victory at the FIBA
U19 World Cup, the
country’s first basket-
ball gold medal in international
competition, 17-year-old RJ
Barrett—short for Rowan Jr—is
with family and friends on a
Friday night at Goldring Centre
for High Performance Sport on
the campus of the University of
Toronto-St. George. He’s there
to take in the last night of OVO
Bounce, a week-long pro-am
tourney organized by Drake
and Jordan Brand.
Wearing a black tee that
says “Canadian Built,” Barrett
is relaxing in his courtside seat.
He’s aware of the increased
spotlight on him since last
month’s gold medal showing in
Egypt, which was highlighted
by his 38-point, 13-rebound,
5-assist performance in a 99-
87 upset win over Team USA in
the semifinals—a game Team
Canada entered as a 20-point
underdog.
The Barrett household has
always been a competitive
one. RJ’s mom, Kesha, was
a track and field star at St.
John’s University. Rowan Sr
played basketball at the same
school before continuing his
career overseas, and repre-
sented Canada at the 2000
Summer Olympics in Sydney,
Australia.
Rowan didn’t necessarily
want to push his son toward
basketball. It had to be his own
choice. Rowan had his own
reasons, too. “It’s such a long
road,” Rowan says. “I know
how long a road it is.”
As a 12-year-old, RJ went
up against players who were
three to four years older than
him. There was one particular
game after which RJ went
home and cried. “I didn’t play
well. I needed to work a lot
harder,” RJ says. “It was a
reality check.”
From that day on, he decided
to dedicate his focus to basket-
ball. Today, RJ is projected as
a top-3 pick in the 2019 NBA
Draft. He’s currently attending
Montverde Academy (FL) and
recently announced his decision
to reclassify to get to college a
year earlier than expected.
On the court, RJ has an
offensive game reminiscent
of James Harden when on
the perimeter and of Dwyane
Wade when finishing at the
rim. Roy Rana, head coach of
Team Canada’s U19 squad,
saw RJ’s coming-of-age per-
formance up close.
“The way he puts together
games, it’s unique for a guy
who still has incredible room
for growth,” Rana said at a
July press conference. “What
we haven’t had is someone
take us to the finish line, and
RJ was able to do that. That’s
what really separates him.”
This year, Rowan wants his
son to continue improving on
the court, from ballhandling, to
his jump shot, to being a better
passer, to strengthening his
body so that he can be a force
on the defensive end. “We
know what the goal is,” Rowan
says. “We’re just looking at ev-
ery single day [RJ’s improve-
ment] needs to happen.”
Rowan has a lesson for
his son that he’s preached
forever: to always die hard on
the court. “That was always
the term for him,” Rowan
explains. “Did you die hard? If
I scored three times in a row,
did you double up your effort
and go harder? It was always
the thing with him—to die hard.
That was something that stuck
with him. I think he dies hard
on the court.” S

WORDS ALEX WONG PORTR AITS CHARLIE LINDSAY SL AMONLINE.COM 77

 War Eagle
EJ MONTGOMERY
MARIETTA (GA) WHEELER
6-10, PF
T H E R E I S A B I T O F I R O N Y in EJ Montgomery’s college
choice. A versatile lefty who goes 6-10, 220, Montgomery is
one of the most skilled big men in the 2018 class. For scouts,
the only question about his game has been whether he can—
and will—bring his best every time out. Here’s where the irony
comes in. “I guess other coaches were wondering if I was going
to be consistent,” Montgomery says. “But Auburn stayed on me
consistently.”
The Wheeler High standout committed last fall to the Tigers,
who are expecting big things from a guy who models his game
after Anthony Davis—and just might have the size and talent to
justify the comparisons. Yes, he hears the concerns about con-
sistency; it’s one of the areas he’s focused on improving, along
with getting stronger and fine-tuning his already pretty solid J.
If he stays at it, the do-it-all stretch 4 might just check off
every goal on his senior year to-do list: state POY, state champ,
Pioneer
All-American. GERALD LIDDELL
After that, it’s all about showing Bruce Pearl and his staff CIBOLO (TX) BYRON P. STEELE II
that their consistent recruiting efforts were worth the trouble— 6-7, F
and making the rest of the SEC wish they’d tried harder to sign
him instead. —Ryan Jones
DESPITE BEING HOME have been thought to be more
to one of the most successful of basketball cities. I hope
franchises in NBA history, my emergence as a national
San Antonio has never really prospect helps motivate kids
been given much recognition [in SA] to be the best they can
when it comes to churning out be, not only on the court but
homegrown basketball talent. in the classroom and every-
While Lone Star State metrop- where else.”
olises like Dallas and Houston After cutting his college
are constantly heralded for list down to seven schools in
producing some impressive May, Liddell ultimately chose
hoop prospects, the city of the Texas Longhorns in August
M O N T G O M E RY: T O D D B U R A N D T/A D I DA S ; L ID D E L L : J O N L O P E Z

San Antonio has always been over Baylor, Arizona, Califor-

an afterthought in that regard.  nia, UCLA, Oregon and SMU.
One Class of 2018 recruit,
though, is hoping to change
that. Gerald Liddell, a 6-7 for-
ward ranked among the top
50 seniors in America, hails
from Byron P. Steele II HS in
Cibolo—a small town about
20 miles northeast of down-
town San Antonio.
“We have some really good
talent here,” Liddell says of
the area. “I guess it kind of
gets overlooked by everyone
because Houston and Dallas
“The coaching staff and
team really made it feel like
home there,” Liddell says of
UT. “The love and care they
have for their players is un-
matched, on and off the court.
I feel like they will bring the
best out of me and help me
reach my ultimate goals. The
school is about 45-50 minutes
away from my house, [so] it’s
gonna be great to be able to
see all my friends and family
in the stands.” —Franklyn Calle
 “I wouldn’t make any baskets,” says
the now high school senior.
Fast-forward to present day, and Smart
does the exact opposite of “nothing” on the
hardwood. He does everything. Peep his
junior year stat line from last season: 25.1
points, 6.4 assists, 8.7 rebounds, 2.1 steals
and 1.1 blocks per game.
That’s quite an epic transformation
for the Baton Rouge native. Despite the
struggle and heartache of losing his
father at an early age, Smart focused on

Knowledge developing his game and is now one of the

top players in the Class of 2018.

Darts
He’ll find himself not far from home this
time next year, at Louisiana State University.
With input from his family, Smart said LSU B a s ke t b a l l
JAVONTE SMART
BATON ROUGE (LA)
was the best decision for him. It’s where he
can continue living out his life motto: “Do Diary
SCOTLANDVILLE MAGNET
what you love, and love what you do.”
If Javonte Smart’s development con- ZION
WILLIAMSON
6-4, G tinues the way it has since he was that kid
W H E N P E O P L E C A M E to elemen- running back and forth on the basketball
tary-aged Javonte Smart’s basketball court, we have no doubt we’ll see him

games, they said he did nothing other
than run up and down the court.
I
t’s crazy that while I was going
competing on even bigger stages soon through high school, it felt like it was
enough. —Habeeba Husain going slow. And now I’m sitting back
and realizing, Wow, this is really my
senior year! I got one last go at a state
championship.
Some of the classes I’m taking this

Westside Connection year are Financial Literacy, Creative

Writing, AP Geography, AP English and
French. My favorite one right now would
ANDREA AQUINO have to be English, just because we get
to debate a lot in the class.
LOS ANGELES (CA) RIBET ACADEMY
I’m looking forward to working on a
6-9, C project in Financial Literacy. Every year
in the class you have to get up in front
T H E P I C T U R E posted I was always the tall one.” of the whole high school and present a
on Instagram is staggering. Aquino spent a couple business idea to a group of adults. When
Standing almost a head years playing ball in New you’re presenting the idea, you have to
convince them that they should invest
taller than L.A. Sparks Jersey before joining Ribet
money into it. It’s kind of like the show
forward Candace Parker is this season. Shark Tank. I think I’m probably going
6-9 high schooler Andrea Comprised of players from to do my own signature shoe for the
Aquino. A senior at Ribet eight countries, her team is project.
Academy in Los Angeles, testament to basketball’s This past summer was my last time
Aquino had a chance to global reach. “We have people ever playing AAU basketball. It was one
of the greatest experiences of my life
meet the future Hall of Famer before a from Spain, Canada, Italy,” Aquino says.
because I missed the first two months
Sparks game in September. “You get to know people with different due to a knee injury but I was just glad
The Oregon State commit has hopes of cultures. To me, that’s unique because I’ve to come back toward the end of summer
eventually sharing the court with Parker never played with people from so many and play in front of my hometown in the
in the WNBA. Not bad for a player who different countries.” adidas Gaunlet Finale. Then I went to Las
S M A R T: J O N L O P E Z ; W IL L I A M S O N : Z AC H W O L F E

started seriously playing basketball at
age 16. Hailing from Paraguay, Aquino
struggled with her height before being
introduced to the game.
“Basketball helped me build up
self-esteem because it was so hard for
me to be tall,” she says. “Since I was 5,
And while she’s thousands of miles Vegas with my teammates and finished
with a 5-1 record.
away from home, Aquino is starting to
Preparing for my senior season, it’s
feel comfortable in her new city. just been a lot of conditioning, like run-
“There’s a lot of stuff to do over here ning on the track—sprints, miles, etc.—
in Cali,” she says. “It’s a lot like home. and working on individual skills. I want
In Paraguay, the weather is almost the my senior year to be unforgettable!
same.” —Ryne Nelson

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