The last 12 months have been a flurry of camps, tournaments, events and enacting his own clinics on defenders and offensive threats alike. And the wide-spread recognition has rightfully poured in. “It’s just kind of recent, like my freshman, sophomore year. I realized that I loved basketball once I shot out my sophomore year and I just kept wanting to play,” Chris says. “Because most people, they’ll just stop and quit, but I kept going and worked harder, and it motivated me.”

The 6-10 center with the bag of a guard has always been one of the tallest among his peers. But it wasn’t until his freshman season at Riverside Academy that he began building toward his future. Alongside his trainer, coach James Parlow, Chris crafted the foundation of the skill set that we see today. One dribble, with a shoulder into the chest, straight into a two-hand flush. Face up fadeaways from the same spot. Pull-up middies off the pick-and-roll. The handles to create coast-to-coast in transition and for others. 

“I feel like every year I got two times better than where I was the year before, which is the goal. Just development. A lot of skill work, working on having a lot of skills,” Chris says. “The goal was to be a versatile big that can guard all positions, handle the ball, shoot the ball, take a guy off the dribble, all those types of things. That was our plan, and I worked and got better and it came to life.” 

Despite the pieces falling into place, Chris was forced to sit out the entirety of his sophomore season after transferring to Isidore Newman School in New Orleans. Transfer rules ruled him ineligible. While the team went on to capture its second straight state championship, Chris was holed up in the lab trying to close the gap between himself and the top-ranked prospects who had been grinding for their keep since middle school. “I was just thinking, Be in the gym and catch up to everyone,” Chris says.

He entered the summer with a Big Easy-sized chip on his shoulder and led the school to its third consecutive state title the following season, averaging 13.9 points and 10.2 boards a game. Now, he’s taking his double-double game to the acclaimed Link Academy in Missouri. 

At the program that’s produced the likes of Ja’Kobe Walter, Jordan Walsh and current Texas freshman Tre Johnson, Cenac Jr is taking advantage of every glimmer of opportunity that presents itself. He’s assumed the role of the squad’s head honcho, electing to lead through actions and let his voice follow as he builds out the habits for his future. “The main thing right now for me is winning the national championship with these guys that I’m at Link with,” Chris says. 

The journey has been rewarding, ranking as high as the No. 7 player in the class of 2025. But that feeling of catching up still hasn’t faded. There are more levels to climb before reaching the ultimate goal. 

“It feels good, but at the same time, it’s not the only place that I want to be at. The rankings now, it’s cool. But the NBA, and lasting in the NBA for a long time, is the main goal. I can’t be complacent.”

Photos via Getty Images. Portrait by Marcus Stevens.

The post Chris Cenac Jr Has a New Home at Link Academy and His Sights Set on a National Championship appeared first on SLAM.

Those were the exact words that Corey “Homicide” Williams said the day he called me in 2015 to let me know that he had just landed a TV broadcasting job in Australia’s National Basketball League.  

The New York playground legend hadn’t even finished his playing career (played in Australia, Sweden, China, Germany, France, Lebanon and Iraq, among many other countries) when the NBL approached him to be a commentator for the league. Despite not having any previous experience as a broadcaster, Homicide’s larger-than-life personality was suited to be in front of a camera, an infectious energy that then General Manager of the NBL Jeremy Loeliger understood was missing from Aussie television screens. 

I was working for ESPN Australia based in New York when Homicide rang me at my Queens apartment from Melbourne to tell me he’d just been made an offer by the NBL. In typical Homicide fashion, he’d already mapped out his 5-year plan for making the transition from the court to television and leaving his mark on the NBL. 

He officially became a full-time media personality with the NBL prior to the 2017-18 season and it came as natural to him as Steph Curry pulling up from the logo. His opinions on topics, infused with a touch of his New York braggadocio, endeared him to the Australian public from the very jump. 

He figured that to get the people going, you needed to be provocative. 

Homicide interacted with fans—and haters—on social media. His weekly power rankings, which he posted on his Instagram page, became a motivational tool for players wanting to prove him wrong, or, in some cases, correct. 

Once the league started gaining traction globally, he coined the now famous phrase, “this ain’t no cupcake league.” It let import players know that the NBL was to be taken seriously, and if you didn’t, you’d would be out of a job real quick. 

As his career flourished, Homicide decided he wanted to do his own podcast, giving listeners an insight into his world beyond basketball and the NBL. He wanted a platform to voice his opinion on his life, basketball, music and culture. I was back in Australia by this time, and he reached out to me to co-host with him. 

“There’s nobody else I wanna do this with, b,” he said. 

When it came time for us to record the first episode of “UPFRONT with Corey Williams,” he hammered home the point that this was a joint venture. He didn’t want me to take a back seat, even to him. 

“I want the people to know your story, too. This [show] won’t work if it’s just me,” he emphasized. Homicide never wanted the spotlight to himself. If he shined, you shined, too. 

He wasn’t afraid to tell it like he saw it, and no player or coach was safe if they were underperforming. Even as he battled cancer, he was still unafraid to speak his mind on our podcast, calling out Melbourne United head coach Dean Vickerman during the 2024 NBL Grand Final series. 

He connected with Australians because he was unashamedly himself. His love for the game, and desire to see the NBL grow, shone through. Attending NBL games with him meant at least a thirty-minute detour before you could get to your seat, as fans stopped and asked him for selfies. 

He galvanized NBL fans, and in the end, even the ones who may have hated from a far can’t deny that the NBL was better for having had him champion it. 

A legend of the game, on and off the court, and across opposite ends of the hemispheres.

Photos courtesy of Nick Metallinos and Getty Images.

The post From NBL MVP to Becoming a Renowned Broadcaster: the Legacy of Corey “Homicide” Williams appeared first on SLAM.

That’s because the 6-8 guard is the youngest player in American hoops to have gone pro—ever. 

Last spring, just after turning 17, the wiry, athletic phenom bypassed his senior year at LG Pinkston High School in Texas to join the G League Ignite. He etched himself into the record books by signing a two-year deal with the NBA’s premier developmental unit, edging out former Ignite star Scoot Henderson—who, up to that point, had been the youngest American to participate in a professional basketball league—by five weeks.

But beyond Pate’s historically young age marker—which, to be clear, has become more normalized in the modern world of basketball—he’s simply a baller. Throw on his highlight tape and you’ll quickly understand why this Southern blue chipper has been wildly sought after. Ranked as a five-star prospect, he garnered recruitment from the nation’s premier college programs (Kansas, Kentucky, Georgetown and the like) as one of the most coveted additions of his class.

Instead, he took the LaMelo Ball route by going pro early. He played with the Ignite for a season, and in his limited but stellar outings, cemented his potential as a hybrid 1 guard who can do it all. He concluded his debut campaign with an average of 24 minutes, 8 points, 2.9 rebounds and 3.6 assists per contest. His length, smoothness, creativity and tempered decision making are reminiscent of Penny Hardaway (one of Pate’s idols) mixed with Shaun Livingston—another of Pate’s exemplaries—and a dash of (yes, I’m gonna say it) LeBron James, who is Pate’s all-time favorite.

“I watch the big guards. I key into what they’re doing,” he tells me over a Zoom call from his porch in Dallas. “But basketball wasn’t even my first love. I was a football player, bruh. I wanted to go to the NFL like Julio Jones, Dez Bryant. I only started playing basketball because I was in a program where you had to play both.”

It explains Pate’s propensity for action and his ability to shift gears and hit the lane with relentless bursts of speed. Large and point-guard minded, Pate knows where his spots are and will surgically get there to create for himself and his teammates. A panther in transition, he pounces, glides and Euro-steps around, through and over any defenders clogging the lane. Impressively, the former NFL hopeful plays with more finesse than force on the hardwood. In fact, it’s his cerebral grasp of in-game rhythm and flow that most seems to define his potential contributions at the NBA level.

But his plans to reach the Association became complicated by Ignite’s recent disbandment; only halfway into his contract with the team, the Las Vegas-based squad folded. Their unexpected dissolution means Pate and his cohort were the last to ever suit up in the experimental NBA organization’s black, purple and white threads. Like always, he had to figure out the best play to make next.

First, he attempted to enter the 2024 NBA Draft with his teammates Matas Buzelis and Ron Holland (lottery picks for the Chicago Bulls and Detroit Pistons, respectively) via a waiver exemption, but was denied due to being under the League’s age limit. That hasn’t deterred the bucket-getting protégé from pursuing his telos, though. Pate made a historic pivot by signing with the NBA-affiliated Mexico City Capitanes.

“I found out [about Ignite’s ending] 45 minutes before the world found out. I didn’t think an NBA program would shut down,” he admits. “But I don’t regret it. That’s adversity. That’s where I get my confidence from. I have to be fully prepared. You never know what’s gonna happen next. What’s next is I went to the gym and I had a job to do, the season wasn’t over yet. And it means I’m the last one in history, as the youngest to ever play with the Ignite.

“I’ve always kept the main thing the main thing,” he adds, without hesitation. “Basketball is the main thing.”

Basketball is why Dink Pate—a Black, Gen Z teenager from Pleasant Grove—is living in Mexico’s capital. Currently, he’s projected to be a star on the Capitanes.

The outfit is the only Mexican-owned sporting franchise to ever compete as a full-fledged member of any pro US league. Having officially joined the G in 2021, Mexico City has since become a top destination for NBA veterans like Jahlil Okafor, Kenneth Faried, Michael Carter-Williams and Juan Toscano-Anderson, who enjoy the chance to shine in North America’s largest city (Mexico City is bigger than New York, L.A, Chicago, Toronto or any other city you can name on this continental expanse). The metropolitan scale and commercial offerings, along with its passionate, international fan base, is something that other G League teams located in places like Southaven, Mississippi and Oshkosh, WI, simply cannot match. And unless they’re on a two-way contract, Capitanes players are available to be called up by any of the NBA’s 30 troupes, which makes it an ideal proving ground for a rising star like Pate. 

And yet, the Capitanes are also Latin America’s home base for its growing ranks of hoop talent aiming to reach the NBA from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Brazil the Dominican Republic and elsewhere. The coaching staff is bilingual. The players and personnel vary in age, experience and career paths. It’s no ordinary circumstance for anyone to enter, let alone an American teenager who nearly ended up playing at the University of Alabama before deciding to go pro.

To his credit, Pate isn’t overthinking any of it. He’s taking Spanish classes once a week. Growing up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where the Capitanes coincidentally played their home games during the COVID-impacted 2021 season (and which boasts over 2 million Mexican-heritage residents), has prepared him for this moment. He feels eager if not proud to put a spotlight on Mexico’s culture and its affinity for basketball.

“I be wearing my sombrero, bruh. I got Mexican homeboys. I stay representing,” he tells me, a Mexican American, with a genuine smile. “I feel like I got a country on my back now. I went down for two weeks and was showered with nothing but love. I love Mexico. That’s family.”

Mexico City will provide more than enough opportunities for what Pate is ready to deliver. Unlike his US-born contemporaries who will be mostly playing in front of college students and alumni at prestigious, ivory-towered campuses, Pate will be electrifying thousands of Spanish-chanting fans at Arena CDMX in the Azcapotzalco neighborhood of Mexico City as a member of the Capitanes.

When we linked up down south, he had just finished practice at Mexico’s national Olympic facility. We met at the bustling Monumento a la Revolución in the Aztec capital’s Plaza de la República. The triumphal arch—think the Arc de Triomphe on Champs-Élysées—symbolizes Mexico’s revolution, in which myth-like heroes such as Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa were crowned liberators of the country’s working classes, effectively rewriting Mexican history over a century ago. 

Besides standing for the nation’s rebellion, the memorial is also the primary logo for the Capitanes. And what better identifier is there for Pate—a player who has already broken history as the youngest pro US baller, and who signed to Reebok—than an ode to revolution?

The NBA’s current age eligibility rules were implemented in 2006, just three years after LeBron James entered the League straight out of St. Vincent-St. Mary High School like an otherworldly meteor of fiery athleticism and professional maturity. But what King James has accomplished since going pro as a teen has been, well, kingly and unprecedented. In 2005, the NBA’s CBA determined that the League simply needed more time in assessing its ultra-young pool of talent, so mandated that all future players must be at least one year removed from their high school graduation and must turn 19 years old within the same calendar year of being drafted.

Unfortunately for Pate, being born in March means he won’t hit 19 until 2025, when he can finally become eligible for the NBA alongside fellow lottery prospects like Cooper Flagg, Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper. At this stage, he’s embracing each step with a precocious mindfulness.

“You can do everything with poetry,” Pate says. “Poetry is real calm. It’s not loud. Stay low and move slow.”

When asked where he developed that mindset, he cites the apodictic rap revolutionary, Tupac Shakur. Pate flashes his Makaveli tattoo and tells me that all 713 of Pac’s tracks are worth listening to. 

On the court, Pate carries a Shakurian blend of maturity and freeness of spirit. You can see it in his off-the-dribble shooting. His calculated step backs. His rhythmic spins. And you can see it in the way he carries a joyful confidence, too.

“I’m not worried about my game,” he says. “I’m focused on my leadership, my communication. I’m gonna be that guy on the team. I’m ready to take the blame. I’ve always been a leader to high school kids but I’m about to be thrown to the fire. I’m ready for it.”

Portraits by Sandra Blow.

The post Dink Pate is Ready to Make History and Become the First Pro Hooper Drafted Out of Mexico appeared first on SLAM.

The state of his English was apparent over the course of an hour-long conversation in New York City in October: Risacher showed off a solid grasp of the language, much of it picked up from teammates in the LNB Elite, the top French pro league, where he made his senior team debut as a 16-year-old in 2021 and spent the next three seasons. “It’s locker room English, not what you expect to learn in a classroom,” he says. There were also movies, especially hoop flicks like He Got Game and Coach Carter, which he’s recently been able to watch without French overdubs. “They were actually better in English, for sure.”

Based on initial impressions from the NBA preseason, Risacher’s time in France’s pro league was no less beneficial to the development of his game. The 6-8, 200-pound wing, chosen No. 1 overall by Atlanta in the 2024 NBA Draft, made a dream first impression in his NBA debut, going for 18 points (on 7-9 shooting) in just 23 minutes in a win over the Pacers. Those numbers, and that result, might not count toward the Hawks’ hopes for a bounce-back season, but the value of Risacher’s outing is no less real.

Just ask the two guys whose appraisals matter as much as anyone’s in the ATL.

“It looked like he was enjoying himself,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder told reporters after the game. “He’s going to have good games, he’s going to have some bad games, but seeing him really have fun playing with his teammates, and those guys making each other better, was what I enjoyed.”

Trae Young, the Hawks’ franchise player, was similarly pleased with what he saw from his new running mate. “That was a hell of a performance,” Young said. “I want him to feel like he felt tonight, like there’s no pressure on him. He can go out there and be himself. He’s gonna have a hell of a career.”

None of this should come as a surprise—by definition, we expect big things from No. 1 picks—but the buzz on Risacher wasn’t quite on the level that his countryman, Victor Wembanyama, generated before and after the Spurs made him the top pick a year earlier. So, no, he hasn’t been anointed a generational game-changer like Wemby—nor, in the opinions of the 30 general managers who participated in the annual NBA GM survey, is he even a leading candidate for Rookie of the Year. (Five players got at least one vote in the poll, and Risacher somehow wasn’t one of them.) None of which seems to faze him in the least. Risacher knows his value, and he’s confident the glimpses he showed in preseason are just the start.

“I’m the type of player who can do a lot of things on the court—the term would be ‘versatile,’ I think, in English?” he says. “The exciting part of having me in your team…I will take pleasure to do whatever it takes to win. I’m that type of player. And I want to win.”

On-court versatility comes easily to a player for whom the game is birthright.

“Basketball is a habit for me and my family,” he says. “Basketball was already there before I was born.” That’s what happens when you’re born in the midst of your father’s 23-year pro career, as Zaccharie was. Risacher was born born in Malaga, Spain, in 2005, where his dad, Stéphane, was hooping for Baloncesto Malaga in the Spanish top division. That was one of 10 stops on Stéphane’s professional résumé in a career that lasted from 1987 to 2010 and also included stints in Greece and his native France. A six-time All-Star in France and a member of the country’s Basketball Hall of Fame, Stéphane was also a fixture for years on the French national team, winning a Silver medal with the 2000 Olympic squad—and, as it happened, being one of the 10 men on the court when Vince Carter created the nastiest poster of all time over his French teammate, Frederic Weis.

Le dunk de la mort happened five years before Zaccharie was born, so he knows it only through the YouTube clips. But of his own earliest memories, naturally, so many connect to basketball. “I cannot even remember the first time I played,” he says. “It was just there. Going to my dad’s practices and games, coming to the gym with him at a really young age—I just did it, and I never stopped doing basketball. It was a way of life that I liked. I never felt like I had to do it. I just wanted to be in the gym with my father. I started getting better, and I wanted to be the best version of myself and accomplish what my dad did—and even better.”

Risacher emphasizes that his father never pushed too hard, but simply gave his son the guidance he asked for. (Clearly, the approach is working in the family: Not only has Stéphane been instrumental in helping Zaccharie reach the NBA, but his daughter, Zaccharie’s younger sister Ainhoa, is one of the top young prospects in Europe; she was recently named one of the best players at the FIBA U17 World Cup. Says Zaccharie, “I’m proud of her, excited for her. I can shoot better than her, but she can handle the ball better than me. She’s tall, she loves to play the point, make crazy passes. She’s special. I can’t wait to see her grow.”)

Zaccharie’s own breakthrough came when he made his French league debut for the senior team at ASVEL Basket in 2021. No matter how helpful his father was, the kid had to learn for himself what it was like to play for, with and against grown men who had salaries and careers on the line. Looking back, he says, “Being pro at 16, that definitely was the biggest challenge of my life. In our league, a coach can get fired super quick. They don’t have time to be nice. It’s a lot of things to handle for a 16-year-old young man. You gotta learn fast, because you play with grown men. You gotta just learn how to deal with it. How I handled it? Just the fact that I never stopped working.”

Risacher thrived, earning LNB All-Star status in 2023 and being named EuroCup Rising Star earlier this year; more important, the experience toughened him, giving him the confidence that when he made the jump to the NBA, he would be better prepared than most rookies to appreciate the stakes. It made it that much easier to settle in after his move to the States. He says he “felt at home pretty quick” in Atlanta, which he credits to the vibe of the city and the Hawks organization. Good vibes aside, he’s taken that transition seriously, working out hard between the draft and training camp. “I wanted to be better than I was in June,” he insists.

He also had a chance to bond with the All-Star teammate with whom a successful partnership is essential for the Hawks’ hopes of improving from last season’s disappointment. A recent highlight: Traveling out to Oklahoma to visit Young on his home turf, catch an OU football game and appear on Young’s podcast. “I really appreciate him for that,” Risacher says of the trip. “That really meant something for me.”

The rookie doesn’t need a podcast of his own to return the favor. He just needs to simply continue balling out, working to develop his potential and the versatile skill set that convinced Atlanta to use a No. 1 pick on him. The results will no doubt mean something to Trae, to his new franchise and to long-suffering Hawks fans ready to root for a contender.

Portraits by Christian Quezada.

Photo via Getty Images.

The post From France to ATL, No. 1 Pick Zaccharie Risacher is Primed to Make a Big Impact with the Hawks appeared first on SLAM.

There’s his team, the Sacramento Kings. He’s their clutch architect, entrusted with the responsibility of winning close games. He’s so nice with that part. So nice that he was fifth in total clutch points scored last season and third in most clutch field goals made, too. 

He’s the Kings’ offensive foundation in all the other moments of the game. He breaks defensive walls with speed that scares. Got defenders looking like the Popeyes lady. They can’t catch him or their breath. He makes dudes in their mid-20s look like grey beards at the barber shop, the ones talking about how nice they used to be. But he’s really that nice. 

He’s got five straight seasons of 20-plus points per game to his name. And with how he’s stacked the improvement of his career, the numbers don’t illustrate the way he’s pieced everything together. 

Bop, bop–quick cross. He’s found space. Lots of it. Could be a faster-than-light pull from the midrange. Defender won’t even get their hand up. That kind of speed. Could be a left-handed smash at the rim over a skyscraper. One of those dunks where his legs kick back behind him. Something to see the Flow outsole real good. Could be a dish to one of the many shooters that now call Sacramento home. Could be a drop-off to the big. But it will be a bucket. And it will be rapid. 

Alright, offense orchestrated. Time for defense. The kind of defense that some coach in the middle of the country is gonna show their star player. “See, see, this is that desire,” he’s gonna say. “You play like this? You play like this? You’re gonna make it.” He’s gonna almost plead with the kid. He’s gonna show Fox picking up three-quarter court, sitting on the point guard’s strong hand. When that point guard does a lazy spin move to try and get back to his dominant side, Fox will pick him on the turn. Boom. Bye bye. Another bucket. 

That’s the way Fox has been upping his game. He’s got the Kings in prime position to scare the daylights out of the West. 

But it’s the night lights that are coming to define this All-Star. There’s the beam. It gets lit every time the Kings win a game. It rises high through the Sacramento sky, a vertical line of purple, built as a warning shot.

Not night lights of the city, though. Nah, not those kinds that are made for social outings. He intimately knows the night lights of weight rooms, of empty gyms, of phone screens. After the workouts that nobody sees, Fox has been building something else. He’s been working on the Fox 1 by Curry Brand. 

Now all those texts messages, emails and FaceTimes back and forth with Ed Wallace, Senior Designer at Curry Brand and Under Armour, have been realized in a physical product. 

The Fox 1 by Curry Brand is here.

A Friday under the daylight of Rancho Cordova, CA, is where all the time under the night lights pays off. Fox, along with his wife Recee and their daughter Poppy, saunters into the athletic facility where we’ve set up our cameras. Fox gets his hair cut by Kevin McClain of Skills Barbershop. Recee eats some lunch. And three colorways of the Fox 1 are waiting for all of us. 

The “Happy Fox Day” is a blue/orange joint inspired by one of Fox’s favorite Christmas movies, Jingle Jangle. The purple/green “Light the Beam” is an homage to the aforementioned winning signal that shines over Sac-Town. 

No. 5’s favorite edition of the trio we have here on set is the “Happy Fox Day Alt.” It’s a green option, also inspired by that same movie. Green is the lefty’s favorite color and it induces a vocal reaction from him when he sees it. 

Slowly, without even realizing it, Fox has been working on a database of colorway ideas. He loves video games, he loves anime and he loves his kids. Those are just the foundations for what we’ll see on the Fox 1. 

“Ed would come to me and ask, you know, five, six, seven different questions and then you give him an answer and I’m thinking, I don’t know what the hell he’s gonna do with that answer,” Fox says. “Then he comes back with, like, 75 different concepts of the 10 things that you might have told him. So just how the creative people are behind the scenes, just having him take those words, come back, you know, a week or two later and putting them on a paper and then asking, you know, Which ones do you like? That process was crazy.”

Wallace heard a lot about Dragon Ball Z and Avatar in his early conversations with Fox. They started to make him PEs of the Curry 1, Curry 2 and the Curry 4 that were callouts to some of his interests, including one for his son, Reign. But as Wallace got to work on the signature, things took an unexpected turn. 

“I started looking at more animals, like foxes,” he says. “Normally I wouldn’t have a reason to do that. It’s just something I thought about. Like, This can be cool to put a little fur up there [on the tongue] and having a strap as I was thinking about speed and brought that to a point [where] I was like, I can make this look like a little fox tail. So those were the things I never explored before.” 

The Fox 1’s defining design piece is the midfoot strap. Each of these different colorways has a different visual across the strap. It’s something De’Aaron had always wanted, ever since he was playing in Under Armour silhouettes as a middle schooler. 

“A big thing for me was having a strap,” Fox says. “One of my favorite shoes to play in growing up was the Bloodlines with Brandon Jennings. That and the Black Ices. The Black Ices also had a strap, too. Those were kind of the concepts that I thought about. I didn’t know what the strap would look like exactly, but when going through the process, I’m like, That’s a big thing for me.” 

Wallace, who is also the lead designer on the Curry line, said that he initially sat down with Fox at a photo shoot for the Curry 11. Fox mentioned then that he wanted a strap. Wallace ended up with a fixed strap and a two-mesh upper, along with no-sew wrapping near the toe area and a heel overlay that provides support under the heel. The traction is powered by Flow, the mainstay cushioning for No. 30 since the Curry 8. Curry Brand’s innovators found out how to remove rubber from their products, resulting in premium grip on the outsole. The Brand’s namesake is always heavily involved in the sneaker creation process. But he wasn’t for this one and it resulted in an amazing memory. 

“When we were in China actually, he hadn’t seen the shoe yet,” Fox says about the trip that he accompanied Stephen Curry on in September. “So when we were in China, we were about to lift in the hotel and he was like, Yo, you got your shoe? I’m like, No, I don’t got them on me. He was like, Damn, I wanna see them.”

When he finally did see them, it was a wrap. 

“He didn’t let them go,” Fox continues. “We went through a whole workout actually, he was, like, holding them, putting them down, doing his thing and then, like, [he’d] be looking at them… Like, Steph’s 10 years older than me, right? I think he’s played eight more years than me. But I watched—I was in high school when Steph won his first MVP, when he won his first championship. Since I’ve gotten to a certain level, I’ve never really, like, necessarily idolized guys. But then when we went on that trip, I’m, like, Steph is on a different level. The way that people react when they get around Steph is, like… But then when you actually see it, we can’t even walk through an airport. Just being around someone of that stature and then seeing him love the product that has my name and my logo on it is just, like, that’s a different feeling, too.”

It won’t be the last time that Fox sees someone wearing his sneaker. He’s already heard from teammates and opponents about the silhouette, although it was just preseason by the time we went to print. He wants to see them on teammates, on his opponents and on fans in the streets. 

“We knew we had to bring a lot of energy and make the shoe fun,” Wallace says. “He also talked about wanting to make the shoe look fast. We know his playing style, so we knew that we needed the shoe to look fast, and he also mentioned that he wanted it to look runner-esque.”

Fox and his close friend Reno have also been mentioning that they’re trying to usher in a bygone era with the Fox 1’s aesthetics. 

“Reno definitely was the most excited,” Fox says. “We kind of knew how we wanted it to look a little bit. He was like, I’m wearing them with jeans, [with] sweats. I’m bringing back the wearing basketball shoes with jeans.

“I’m like, yeah, I want a shoe that you don’t only wear on the basketball court because especially, like I said, this day and age, people aren’t going to buy basketball shoes to not play in them. So we wanna kinda have that. We wanna try to have the best of both worlds.”

So Fox is building with the Kings and with his signature sneaker. And Curry Brand is building out their larger family. 

That’s the key word—family. 

Type of family that goes all the way to China and then comes back for a barbecue on a Sunday afternoon. Where Canon Curry plays around with Reign Fox. Where No. 30 and No. 5 go head-to-head in postseason matchups and then hug it out afterward. Curry Brand is a family, where athletic gifts take a backseat to morals. 

“I couldn’t think of a better athlete and person to join the Curry Brand team,” the best shooter ever says of Fox. “To have somebody that believes in what you’re doing, believes in what the brand stands for, and believes in not just being a Curry Brand athlete, but taking that and building that into your identity as a player is special. And that’s exactly why we chose De’Aaron—he believes in Curry Brand and our mission as much as he believes in himself on the court. I’m grateful to have a partner that is so dedicated to our brand and invested in what our collective future holds.” 

What does that future hold? Lots and lots more clutch shots. Lots and lots more speed that scares. Lots and lots more steals. And lots and lots more Fox 1 colorways. Because brick by brick, step by step, De’Aaron Fox is building. 

Portraits by Atiba Jefferson.

The post De’Aaron Fox on the Fox 1 by Curry Brand, Family and His Love of Christmas appeared first on SLAM.

The pair of six-story structures are wrapped in abstract silver paneling with crystal clear glass composing the full face of the main wing’s entrance. Ten white beams sit at an angle supporting the L-shaped walkway above. Black adirondack chairs and tables are sprawled out underneath the shade that the canopy above provides. It’s a sick scene. Flick worthy for sure. 

SLAM 253 featuring Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper is available now.

As we wipe away rain that fell on the chairs just 15 minutes before, the doors of the building swing open. Class is out. Students wearing sweatpants, backpacks, slides and with iPhones in hands pour out of the automatic double doors. 

Initially, the kids don’t pay any mind to the 6-10 and 6-6 freshmen who will be leading the Scarlet Knights into the 2024-25 season as one of the most talked-about teams in the country. And then Dylan starts messing with his boy.

“Free pictures with Ace Bailey! Ace Bailey’s here!” Dylan, who’s wearing a black Rick Owens jacket and black PRPS jeans, calls out to the crowd of students trying to make it to their next class. Ace isn’t having it. 

“THE Dylan Harper. Five dollars for a photo with Dylan Harper!”

The two go back and forth for 30 seconds, until a group of students starts to gather. This wasn’t the intention. They were just trying to mess with each other. A healthy balance of embarrassment, if you will. But before we know it, a line has formed and the two have created a routine that’s down pat. 

Dylan holds the adidas basketball stamped with the Rutgers R and stands to the right. Ace, who’s wearing a black sweatsuit with red accents from the Lifestyle Sports Agency, which was founded by Sharife Cooper’s dad, Omar, and currently reps the Tennessee native, stands to the left with room in between them. They wave someone over and Dylan asks if they want to hold the ball. They smile while a friend takes the photo. A few dap-ups follow and encouragement for the season, then it’s off to class, the dining hall or the dorm. After about five minutes, the line disperses, and Ace and Dylan go right back to posing for their SLAM cover shoot.

This has never been the norm for Rutgers basketball. Impromptu meet and greets. Sold-out season tickets months out from the season. Thirty-plus journalists showing up for media day. It all represents just a bit of the hype that this pair of freshmen have injected into the program. 

As the No. 2 and No. 4 players in the Class of 2024 (per ESPN), Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper are the highest-ranked recruits to ever suit up in the Scarlet red. And that’s no shade to the likes of Phil Sellers, James Bailey and other Rutgers legends, but the energy around campus this year is different. These kids don’t just walk with the gusto of rock stars, they play like it, too. NBA scouts, head coach Steve Pikiell and the students who just got out of class all know it. And to think it all started with a Big Ten win nearly two years ago.

It’s January 15, 2023, and Ace Bailey is on his official visit to Rutgers. He’s with now-sophomore Jamichael Davis, sitting behind the bench waiting for Ohio State vs. Rutgers to tip.

“And then Coach Pike’s coming down talking to me and J-Mike [Jamichael Davis] like, Come on, put your stuff on. Y’all ready? That just showed us right there that he’s excited for us to come down,” Ace says. “And I’m still a junior, I wasn’t even a senior yet. So, him saying that, it meant a lot to let us know he’s ready. He’s ready to pour into us and give it his all. So we’re ready to give our all for him.” 

Amid the hype and excitement in the locker room after watching the team rally together for a thrilling overtime win, Ace knew that this was where he was supposed to be. He leaned over to Coach Pikiell and verbally committed to the program on the spot. 

“I didn’t have any idea that I was going to commit that day, but what I felt in the locker room was something that I wanted to be a part of. So I committed, and from there we went out to eat,” Ace says. “B. Knight [associate head coach Brandin Knight] called Dylan and was like, Talk to Dylan. And I was like, I just did it, it’s your turn now. He was like, I got you.”

In truth, Ace had no idea who was on the other end of the line when Brandin Knight handed him the phone. It took a second for the two to figure out who they were talking to. But once they did, they fell right back into the brotherhood that’s been fostered since they first met at Sharife Cooper’s camp a few years ago. 

“Off the court, it was never about basketball for us. It was about building a friendship and a bond,” Dylan says. “I think from day one, we connected and clicked right away. And it would be little stuff. [I’d] call him, FaceTime him like, Yo, how was class? How was school? We got practice later. Stuff like that. So it was never about the basketball part, it was about being a brotherhood and coming together as one.”

It took around 11 months, but Dylan came through. Surrounded by his immediate and extended family, the No. 1 point guard in the country announced his commitment live from the Fanatics HQ in New York City. After going back and forth with his brother, Ron Harper Jr, about their battles growing up and passing the torch of the program, Dylan decided to return the favor to Ace. 

“I was in school when he called me, too,” Ace says. 

“Yeah, he was laying on the couch,” Dylan says while Ace laughs. “I think it was before practice. It was just, like, a brother thing. After you do something good, you want to call your family, your people, and tell them what happened. So that’s what I did right there.” 

Dylan’s connection to Rutgers runs deep. Between middle school and high school, he was running around the RAC (now referred to as Jersey Mike’s Arena), getting shots up while his older brother led the program’s resurgence with back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances. 

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“His four years here, just seeing how the coaching staff really worked with him, I was just like, Why can’t that be me? So that was probably the biggest thing. The family lineage, I want to be myself and [know] I can come here and be myself,” Dylan says.

While Dylan was building out the framework of his game, he was equally immersed in the program’s cultural fabric. He watched Rutgers basketball climb from winning less than five games in Big Ten play to flirting with AP rankings. He witnessed his brother rise from being a four-star recruit (per Rivals) to making the League under the guidance of Coach Pikiell. Now it was his turn to build off of the foundation his brother constructed. 

For the past few months, Ace and Dylan have been building chemistry and rapport with their teammates and coaching staff. Workouts preceded and followed their daily practices from June to August. They’ve been putting in the work. No doubt about it. 

“We learned a lot from the summertime. That was just a time to bond with our teammates,” Ace says. “We’ve got great bigs, great guards, great shooting guards. We bonded, see how they play, they see how we play, and we just connected and put everything together.”

It’s only been a few months and they’ve already built out an uncanny cerebral connection. Dylan knows when it’s time for Ace to turn up. He can feel the pockets within the game where Ace can build his confidence through buckets, and vice versa. Backdoor cuts and alley-oops are signaled with the bat of an eye. At the same time, Ace knows when Dylan’s going to find him for a slashing cut off the baseline. He’s taking advantage of the moments where he can break open his bag and rain down pull-up threes while expanding his playmaking.

They’re adjusting to the pace of the college game and “not wasting your energy on doing a lot of moves. Being exact in what you want to do, stick right to it. Don’t try to play around,” Dylan explains. “These are grown men. Like 23, 24. You’re not going to have time to really do everything that you were doing in high school.”

“Get to your spots,” Ace chimes in. 

“Get to your spots,” Dylan repeats in affirmation.

Even when they’re not connecting on displays of basketball genius, Ace and Dylan are in sync. Target runs are routine, most recently copping a new comforter for Ace. So are late night stops at Shake Shack or hitting up the dining hall after practice. Since arriving on campus in the midst of June for summer workouts, Ace and Dylan have been stacking on the bedrock of their brotherhood. When one calls, the other answers. It’s been that way long before the commitments. 

“Yeah, we go to Target, like, every other week. If y’all want to catch us, catch us at Target. We’ll be at Target. All the time, I’m telling you,” Dylan says. “But, probably in the summertime it was more like, practice early, then the rest of the day we’re with each other. No class, chilling in the room, playing the game. Doing kids stuff, honestly, just being ourselves and bonding.”

Inside the third floor of the practice facility, Ace and Dylan pose for flicks in their Scarlet Knights uniforms. Despite standing in front of a matching backdrop, the bond between them is clearer than the panes of the business school they’ll be next to 30 minutes later. Jokes get thrown back and forth like the rock on the perimeter. They call out to passing teammates in unison, checking in to see what their guys have been up to. And when Josh Turner’s “Your Man” blares from the speakers above, an unanticipated karaoke session ensues.

Piscataway has become a second home. There’s a sense of comfort, family and loyalty that runs through the campus. Their commitment to Rutgers’ prominence is being met with a trust to be themselves, to keep their feet grounded in the present while holding each other accountable to what they set out to accomplish almost two years ago. Team up. Dominate.

Welcome to the new norm. Rutgers, you ready?

Portraits by Marcus Stevens.

The post Range Brothers: Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey Talk Coordinated Commitment to Rutgers, Building a Brotherhood and Sights on the NBA appeared first on SLAM.