M. ANTHONY NESMITH/ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
presented the prestigious Bob Cousy
Award and had one of the best individual
March Madness performances.S
COUTS AND DRAFT
analysts were infatuated
over his athleticism and
ambidexterity. A dual threat,
his playing style was
dissected to a T. He could
score from all three levels and, in the
open court, the way he attacked the rim
drew comparisons to Russell Westbrook.
The handle, which was a nightmare for
opponents, was stellar and his playmak-
ing—how he could orchestrate an offense
and zip passes with his off-hand—was
that of an elite NBA point guard.
“My favorite thing to do [is] just share
the ball with my teammates,” he says.
“I’m giving them easy looks to build
their confidence. I feel like if they start
off with high confidence and having fun,
then we’re a way better team.”
Morant was proclaimed as the top-3
pick in mock drafts. He suddenly went
from one of college basketball’s
best-kept secrets to the most-talked
about draft prospect not named Zion
Williamson.
But all this recognition wasn’t there
for him just a few years ago. Morant,
who hails from Dalzell, SC, a town with
a population of under 3,000, was an un-
ranked player from a small town craving
college interest on the hardwood.
He was once teammates with Wil-
liamson on the South Carolina Hornets,
a local travel ball program, during high
school. On a team that had a player with
NBA-caliber potential, Morant was in the
shadows looking to prove he belonged.
As time passed, he became skeptical.
With peers receiving college interest,
Morant questioned his athletic ability.“I used to doubt myself a lot,” he says.
“My mom and dad always preached to
keep working. My mom told me I was
beneath no one and my dad told me that
I was trained to go. I used those words as
fuel to my fire.”
Ja’s father Tee set the blueprint. Tee
starred at Hillcrest HS in Sumter County
(SC) and won a state championship
alongside Ray Allen in the early ’90s. He
then played at Claflin University, a Divi-
sion II in Orangeburg, SC, followed by a
stint overseas. When Tee’s primary focus
was teaching Ja the game, he prioritized
one thing: fundamentals.
There was no state-of-the-art facility,
cameraman or purposeless props—only
a basketball and a slab of concrete in the
family’s backyard with the countryside
humidity. Tee’s drills consisted of skill
work and plyometrics for roughly two
hours a day. After every drill, Ja jumped
on tractor tires 25 times—eventually
extending to 50 when it became easy.
“They was tough,” Ja says. “I know
most people now fall in love with the
fancy part of the game thinking they
gotta have a trainer to get better, but my
dad preached that I didn’t need any of
those things.”
Before Ja was a teenager, Tee real-
ized he was unlike other children in his
age group. Ja’s feel for the game was
clear against older competition.
“I noticed his IQ,” Tee says. “Having
a basketball background, I knew what
I had to do to make him effective on
the court. I knew he was special around
11, 12.”
Another one of Tee’s plans was to
build his son up mentally. Ja, who calls
Tee his “biggest hater,” was always
looking for validation after a good game.
It never came. Instead, his father’s criti-
cisms taught Ja to be resilient and nevercomplacent with his game.
“I was the one saying, ‘You’re over-
rated,’ because I refused to give him the
stamp of approval because he started to
work hard,” Tee says. “I could tell he was
looking for that, but I had to fight it off
because he was playing very well.
“He was always looking for the
perfect grade, and that was my way for
continuing to motivate him. I always told
him he ain’t do nothing ’til he reached his
dream of playing under the big lights.”
“I’d say my 8th, 9th grade year is
when I finally began to realize what he
was actually doing—preparing me,” Ja
says.
During the summer of his junior year,
Morant attended Chandler Parsons’
basketball camp in Spartanburg, SC. A
late addition, Morant’s name wasn’t on
the camp roster, and he was placed in an
auxiliary gym.
This is where Murray State head
coach Matt McMahon first heard about
Ja Morant. McMahon received a call
from then-assistant coach James Kane
about a player he stumbled across by
accident.
Kane was scouting Tevin Brown, a
small forward from Alabama, when he
went to the concession stand and saw
Morant, an incoming senior playing 3-on-- Kane immediately called McMahon,
urging him to make the trek to Spartan-
burg to see this camper, who, according
to Kane, had all the pro intangibles.
“You could see it right away when we
watched him play that summer—just his
ability from an athleticism and explosive
standpoint,” McMahon says. “We started
to see his ability to find people on the
court, his court vision and feel for the
game.”
A scholarship offer followed after
Morant scored 36 points against Brown’s
“JA IS FEARLESS
WHEN IT COMES TO COMPETITION.”
—TEE MORANT
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