DECEMBER 2021 59siblings were playing Uno or Monopoly or just racing to
the door. There are various scuff marks along the walls
and moldings where the Hendersons have “dunked” on
one another, using a real ball but an imaginary hoop.
(Crystal, needless to say, was not amused.)
In a family of chatty souls, Scoot is the quietest. But as
the quiet types often do, he was soaking up every lesson
and adopting the best pieces of his siblings’ games. He
meticulously lists them: China’s jump shot, Diamond’s
fadeaway, CJ’s hesitation move, Onyx’s footwork. He has
even picked up some shooting technique from Moochie,
who Scoot says is the family’s finest long-distance sniper.
The best passer? “Me,” Scoot says softly, sounding
more matter-of-fact than boastful. When it’s suggestedhe will eventually rank No. 1 at all of the above, he says,to mixed results. The NCAA held a virtual monopoly on
the market for elite talent.
But in 2019, the G League started offering “select” con-
tracts, worth $125,000, to a handful of high school stars.
The next year the NBA launched the Ignite, attracting
stars like shooting guard Jalen Green and small forward
Jonathan Kuminga with a far bigger haul: reportedly
around $500,000 for each. Two months after Scoot struck
his two-year deal with the Ignite, a 16-year-old big man
from Oakland, Jalen Lewis, signed with Overtime Elite,
reportedly for more than $1 million. The Atlanta-based
OTE is offering players a minimum of $100,000 per season
to play for one of their three squads of teenagers.
By next summer a third option should be available:
the Professional Collegiate League, which plans to startSyracuse, and Onyx and China, 26, at Cal State–Fullerton.
CJ, 20, played at Kell High until he suffered a knee injury.
Their youngest sister, 16-year-old Crystal, who goes by
Moochie, is a point guard and one of the top-ranked preps
in Georgia. The oldest brother, Jade, 28, preferred football
but can hold his own in family pickup games. Chris has
coached them all since they were toddlers dunking on
plastic hoops and continues to train them at Next Play 360°.
Crystal runs the gym. And all of the Hendersons can be
found there nearly every day, Scoot sometimes until 2 a.m.
before his move west.
Those in Scoot’s orbit describe him the same way:
serious, reserved, hyperfocused, mature beyond his years
but a kid at heart, a sensitive soul. When his sisters went
away to college, Scoot would call them almost daily to
through a horror movie.
work ethic: “The grind is just special. You can’t enjoy
the end success. You got to enjoy the grind, so you can
get that success.”
He was born Sterling Henderson, but just about everyone
has called him either Scoot or Scoota since he was a toddler.
The roots of that moniker are the subject of family debate.
His siblings say it had to do with his scooting across the
f loor on his rear, but Crystal insists, “It’s just a nickname.”
As the second-youngest of the Henderson Seven (as
Crystal calls them), Scoot took his basketball lumps early,
playing against his older siblings. “All seven of us would be
out there to one, two o’clock in the morning,” says Diamond,
“going at it, crying, arguing, fighting. My dad would have
to referee us a lot of times just so we didn’t kill each other.”
The indoor activities were just as intense, whether the
“IT’LL BE THE MOST AGGRESSIVE
ARMS RACE FOR TALENT
THAT THE BUSINESS HAS SEEN IN A LONG TIME,”
DAWKINS SAYS.