For Harper, the season was not yet over. The stars happened to align perfectly for him to get another opportunity in the NBA. On the same evening that Birmingham was eliminated from the G League playoffs, the Pelicans secured their spot in the play-in tournament for the NBA playoffs, beating the Kings in Sacramento. Harper reported to New Orleans the following day.
Only three games remained in the regular season. Since he was signed to a two-way contract (as opposed to a standard contract), Harper would not be eligible for the playoffs. On April 7 the Pelicans hosted the Portland Trail Blazers with a chance to clinch a home play-in game. Harper was able to check in with 5:02 left in the fourth quarter, as New Orleans held a comfortable 115–86 lead. By the 2:49 mark, he had already scored 8 points. Fans at the Smoothie King Center cheered wildly. Those watching at home voiced their support for Harper on Twitter:
@FlurrayTalks: Add 4 inches to Jared Harper and we are un-ironically talking about a 20/7 guy.
@CoolKaneMVP: If Jared Harper was 6’4” he’d be a top 10 young guard in the league.
@KingChris504: Jared Harper could’ve won us like 3 games this year, I’m not joking.
Two nights later, the Pelicans visited the Grizzlies in Memphis. The game was another blowout, this time not in New Orleans’ favor. It was 131–90 with 7:03 on the clock when Harper replaced Alvarado. For those (often ugly) seven minutes, Harper was the best player on the floor. He scored on his first offensive possession, leading color commentator Antonio Daniels to remark, “He’s not allowing the game to breathe. He’s going to take his skill set to the game.”
Harper finished with 12 points on an efficient 5 of 6 shooting from the field, also notching 3 steals and 2 assists. The performance earned him a spot at the podium for a postgame interview, during which Harper told reporters, “I know I deserve to be on the NBA level and play.”
The final contest of the season was a nationally televised matchup against the Golden State Warriors. With the Pelicans locked in as the number nine seed in the West, head coach Willie Green opted to rest many of his key players. Harper received twenty minutes off the bench and, unsurprisingly, was productive again. A few times Golden State tried to capitalize on his size, taking him down to the post. But Harper hung tough. The end of the game marked the end of his season, at least on the court. During the playoffs, he could sit on the bench for the Pelicans but would not be active. He finished a stellar year on a stellar note, recording 10 points, 9 assists, 1 steal, and 0 turnovers in a 128–107 loss to the eventual NBA champions.
Watching at home, Patrick and Erica Harper were thrilled for their son. This game, they believed, would provide Jared with extra motivation going into the offseason. “Now you’ve got some fuel in your fire because there’s a glimmer of hope,” said Patrick. “You got a chance to play, and you did well.”
A string of impressive games at the NBA level would add more fuel to his fire, sure. But it would also lead Jared to wrestle even further with the same exasperating question: What more can I do?
Harper had starred in the G for three consecutive seasons, made an All-NBA G League Team twice, contributed to a winning organization, shot a high percentage from three, gotten better each year. And now he had played significant NBA minutes—and thrived in them.
“I feel like that’s always been my frustration,” Jared said, “because it’s difficult, especially when you’re around people—NBA players or former NBA players or even front office [executives] or coaches, NBA circle people—and they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re definitely an NBA player.’ I don’t think there’s ever really been a question of, like, ‘Am I?’ It’s just, I guess, when exactly it will happen or can happen.”
“There aren’t many things that I can say that bother him,” Patrick added, “but I get the sense, like, ‘Hey, I’ve done everything. I’ve gotten better. I’ve performed well. I’ve done this. I’ve worked on this.’”
What more can I do?
Of course, there was always more that he could do. For one, Harper’s defense could improve. He occasionally took possessions off on that end. He wasn’t quite the pest that Alvarado was—the type of undersized player that NBA scouts were drawn toward. Harper’s scoring ability, while elite, wasn’t going to be his ticket to the big leagues. Not by itself.
As a playmaker, Harper had also taken a major step forward, averaging 7.2 assists for Birmingham. But even he knew there was more room for growth. When the Pelicans faced the Phoenix Suns in the playoffs, Harper studied opposing point guard Chris Paul, a twelve-time All-Star regarded as one of the greatest ever at his position. Paul makes the right play ten out of ten times, Harper noted. With the Squadron, he reasoned that he had made the right play nine out of ten times. Coach Pannone agreed; he also believed that Harper, like Paul, could be a ten-out-of-ten player.
Still, even if he did develop further, Harper could very well find himself asking the same question next summer: What more can I do? Constantly hearing that he was an NBA player was reassuring but also frustrating. If he was an NBA player, then he should be in the NBA, right?
Not exactly.
The distinction between an NBA player and a player in the NBA exists for a reason. Only around five hundred spots are available in the NBA each year, and more than five hundred players are capable of filling those spots. And such a small number of those spots—just eleven in the 2021–22 season—go to players under six feet tall.
By the spring of 2022 Harper had already made up his mind about the ensuing year. If he was not offered an NBA contract after the annual Summer League, he would play overseas in Europe. He didn’t care where or for what team; he just would not return to the G. He shared that decision with Squadron coaches during his exit interview in May. They understood. Pannone was a big fan of the EuroLeague and thought Harper would enjoy his experience there, should it come to that.
“You were really great to coach, really great to have,” Pannone told Harper that day. “I’m sure fortunate that we were able to have you on our team and coach you. I was really excited to get you. We knew that we wanted you, and you were even better than what we thought. I fully believe—I’ll say it and keep saying it until the day you retire—you are an NBA player.”
“It was awesome to coach you and work with you,” Saint added. “I learned a lot from you just in our little individual daily film sessions. You really are an NBA player.”
That much—regardless of what the future held for Jared Harper—would always be true.
At the end of March, before the G League playoffs began, Cheatham flew to Milwaukee to work out for the Bucks, one of the best teams in the NBA. He was on a 7:00 a.m. flight out of Birmingham and went straight to their practice facility. That afternoon, he was put through a workout with three other G Leaguers: B. J. Johnson, Micah Potter, and Justin Tillman. They were all competing for one open spot on the Bucks roster.
Cheatham was pleased with his performance that day. Upon returning to Birmingham, he was hopeful that the Bucks would call with good news soon. For the time being, though, he had to focus on the Squadron. He proved crucial during the team’s five-game winning streak to clinch a playoff berth, averaging 13.4 points (on 64 percent shooting) and 11.4 rebounds.
After Birmingham was eliminated by Texas, Cheatham remained optimistic that he, like Harper, might finish the year in the NBA. But the Bucks ultimately went in a different direction, calling up guard Rayjon Tucker from the Wisconsin Herd, their G League affiliate, on April 8.
Back to square one.
Once again, Cheatham had been so close to a big break, only to see it vanish. His professional career seemed cursed, beginning midway through his rookie season, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the NBA.
“I want you to keep your head up and keep going,” Darvis Fletcher, Cheatham’s best friend, repeatedly told him. “You’re too far to give up now. You’re right there. It’s going to happen. It has to happen. You’re doing everything right.”
When he returned to South Phoenix, Cheatham reconnected with many of his childhood friends, including Fletcher. They sat around and reflected on his season together. There were a lot of highs to celebrate, but it was also one of the most grueling and emotional years of Cheatham’s life—not just of his career. His message to his friends was encouraging, nonetheless.
“He was like, ‘All of this is happening to me but I’m still here. I’m still standing,’” recalled Fletcher. “A lot of people can’t make it through what he’s been fighting through. He’s just in a space where, ‘I’m still here, so I have to keep pushing. There’s no way I did all this and went through everything this year and I’m going to give up.’ So he’s still in it. He’s still ready for whatever.”
Cheatham continued to garner interest from foreign clubs, but he was not yet prepared to leave the United States, not while he was knocking on the door of the NBA. “I’m putting all my eggs in one basket this summer,” he told Squadron coaches during his exit interview in May. “I’m going to give this NBA thing a real try. I’m going to put everything I got into my training, hit Summer League, and worst case, if I gotta spend some more time in the G, that’s what it is. But I’m really taking it one step at a time, because I really feel like if I attack Summer League with the right team, doing everything that I’m supposed to do, I think I’ll get where I want to be.”
“Yeah, you’re right there,” Pannone replied. He, too, was constantly getting calls from international teams to inquire about Cheatham. “You’re obviously right there. You got three call-ups this year, and if some bad luck didn’t happen, who knows? Maybe you’d never have come back from Miami.”
Cheatham nodded in agreement.
“I assumed that would be your path,” Pannone continued, “that you’d try at least one more year and give everything that you have. I just wasn’t sure.”
“Yeah, so that’s where I’m at with it,” Cheatham said. “But obviously I’m not ignorant. I’m not oblivious to the reality of the situation. I am about to be twenty-seven. I don’t have the cartilage I used to have in my knees. And at some point, I am a provider for my family. So I’m realistic with my approach. But just being that I got those ten-days and those call-ups, I’m not really financially pressed at the moment.”
With his sights still set on the NBA, Cheatham started training for the annual Summer League. At the same time, he was also caring for his mother, Carolyn, whose health was rapidly declining. Carolyn had always been there for him, working tirelessly to give him the future that he wanted. “It was just me and my mom through everything,” Zylan said, reflecting on his childhood. “Us struggling, trying to figure it out, through everything, just me and her. There ain’t really too much in the world I wouldn’t do for her, because I watched her get up and bust her ass every day for me.”
Sadly, Carolyn’s condition grew worse as the days went by. Her long and courageous fight with cancer was nearing its end. Less than a week before Zylan was scheduled to leave for Summer League, she passed away.
Cheatham was heartbroken. He just didn’t understand how something so cruel and unfair could happen. She was his best friend—his number one fan—and without her, he felt alone. Empty. Over the next several months, he would often find himself trying to text her, yearning to talk to her about whatever was on his mind.
Isolating was one of the ways that Cheatham coped. Another was playing basketball. With a heavy heart, he carried on with his career, joining the Bucks for Summer League. Of course, his presence there was about more than just chasing the NBA. For Cheatham, the court had always been a place of refuge; the game “an escape and emotional release.”
When Cheatham first started to take basketball seriously in the eighth grade, there were no thoughts of making it to the NBA. It was just a way to keep him out of trouble. “I think basketball really saved my life,” he said, “so I just try to give everything I got to the game every day.”
From seven-hour gym sessions with Fletcher at the South Mountain Community Center, Cheatham’s NBA dream was eventually born. As more time passed, he began to view that dream as much bigger than himself. He wanted to make it for Fletcher, who introduced him to the game at such a pivotal moment in his life; for his mom, who sacrificed everything to put him in this position; and for the entire city of South Phoenix, which raised him and supported him. He would keep going for all of them.
No matter the adversity, Cheatham’s mindset would remain the same: I’m still here. I’m still standing. And I’m not giving up.
When Young would mention the idea of retiring during the season, strength and conditioning coach Jordan Kincaide would always reply with the same answer: “You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself.”
Kincaide was right. At this point, basketball was a part of who Joe Young was. He could not walk away from the game—or, ultimately, from his NBA dream.
Once the season ended, the twenty-nine-year-old Young returned home to Houston. He enjoyed some quality time with his family. It wasn’t long, though, before he was back in the gym. He extended open invites to Petty and Cheatham to join him for workouts. His primary goals for the summer were to improve his three-point shooting and his finishing ability around the rim. The midrange shot, which had long been Young’s greatest strength, was becoming a lost art in the NBA. So he wouldn’t focus on it—or rely on it—any further. He would do whatever it took to grab the attention of scouts.
Young also began training with John Lucas II, a former NBA player (the number one pick in the 1976 NBA Draft) and current assistant coach for the Houston Rockets. Lucas put him through extremely rigorous conditioning drills that, while painful, left Young feeling eighteen again.
Young’s overall outlook hadn’t changed. He was still fixated on the NBA—still committed to chasing what he had lost—despite the arduous season he had just endured. He was still optimistic that his opportunity was coming. He would not participate in Summer League but worked out privately for eight different NBA teams.
“I’m ready to get back on an NBA floor!” he tweeted in July. And in August, “I be wondering why I’m not still in the NBA, but hey God knows and I will be back before it’s said and done!!!”
There was no doubt that the past year had been difficult for him, that it had taken a significant toll on him emotionally. Young had left a $3 million contract on the table to sign in the G League, fully expecting to finish the season in the NBA. On the second day of training camp at Birmingham-Southern, he had sat on the sideline with a smile on his face and told a reporter, “We will get back. We’re going to be back in the NBA.”
He was so confident then, so full of hope. He spoke of new beginnings and opportunities and rechasing his dream. “If you know you belong somewhere and you know what it takes to get there, then you gotta do the things that you don’t want to do,” he said. “I knew that I would have to take a big pay cut. I felt like, no biggie. I can sacrifice that to get to where I want.”
Of course, the longer Young spent in Birmingham, the more disheartened he grew. A record 117 players were called up to the NBA during the season, shattering the previous high of 50. And somehow, Young wasn’t one of them.
The G League might have been a forgiving place, a place for second chances. But the NBA, ostensibly, was not—at least for guys on the fringe. Because the truth was, Young had done everything right. He had kept his word to Chasanoff and Pannone, fulfilling every promise he made back in October: to be a leader, play the right way, buy in to the team’s system, work hard. He had persevered through a taxing six-month season, appearing in forty-four of forty-six games and logging the twelfth most minutes in the entire G League. He had never quit.
“It’s something you should be proud about, because I’m proud of you,” Pannone said to Young during his exit interview. “From day one, everything you said you were going to do, you did. A lot of people say a lot of shit, and they don’t do it, especially when things don’t go their way or when they hit adversity. You were amazing. And I loved coaching you. And I’m very, very, very grateful for what you sacrificed for our team and to be there every day.”
The feelings of gratitude were mutual. “I really appreciate y’all for giving me an opportunity to show who I really am,” Young told the staff. Call-up or no call-up, his season with the Squadron had allowed him to prove his reputation wrong. To demonstrate his maturity. To change his narrative.
“You were unbelievable,” Saint said. “I’ve said this to other people: this whole year is an unbelievable real-life example of somebody who had to go through something mentally—a lot of stuff that was really tough—and you did that and you got better and you took people with you. That is really fucking rare. This world is a selfish world, con artists everywhere. I don’t know what’s going to happen with your career or my career or anybody’s career, but you did an unbelievable job this year.”
“I’m just going to build off of this,” Young replied. “I just really appreciate y’all for giving me an opportunity to build off of something and change a red flag into something good, you know?”
“I’m truly honored,” he added. “I’m telling you, I’m truly honored. Don’t even think twice—do y’all think Joe would come back? Just know this—yes, Joe will come back.”
Now that the season was over, Hill could take a moment to pause. He could finally look back and think, Wow.
A season that started with him in the G League, as a player—in his words—“not known in the basketball world,” finished with him on the Chicago Bulls. He wore four different jerseys in a five-month span, appearing in eight games for the Windy City Bulls, Chicago’s G League affiliate, in March. By the end of the year, not only were the Bulls still invested in him, but other teams around the NBA were expressing interest too. Chicago would soon extend a two-way qualifying offer, making him a restricted free agent. Hill was certain that he would either be back with the Bulls or on a different NBA roster when the 2022–23 season began.
After taking just a week off to reflect, Hill returned to the grind. “Why not enjoy myself a little more? The answer was simple for me,” Hill wrote in one of his blog posts. “I am nowhere close to where I want to be, and I haven’t accomplished the end goals. Not even close.”
He could feel himself getting comfortable—too comfortable—with his daily routine, so he tweaked it. Or, to be more precise, he added to it. He incorporated more recovery techniques, including qigong, a form of traditional Chinese exercise similar to tai chi. He focused on new ways to stimulate his mind, picking up Sudoku and doing word searches and puzzles. “It feels like I’m unlocking more neurons,” he explained. “I just feel at peace, at ease.” He started listening to more podcasts and carving out more time to read, diving into Robert Greene’s Mastery and David R. Hawkins’s The Map of Consciousness Explained.
His two main goals for the offseason were to change his diet—eating more fruits and vegetables and less meat—and begin his days earlier. He got into a rhythm of waking up at 5:30 a.m., which allowed him to pack far more into his schedule. Before the sun rose each morning, Hill had already started his morning rituals: meditation, yoga, reading, journaling. It gave him time for two—often three—workouts throughout the day.
By now Hill fully trusted the power of his routine. He also knew that his trust was bound to be tested at some point. There were plenty of moments over the past year when he wondered, How am I possibly going to make it to the NBA by the end of 2021? After all, to most people, it was a laughable pursuit.
“I didn’t know what it was going to look like or how I was going to get to the NBA,” he admitted. “Good days, bad days. Good games, bad games. Good practices, bad practices. I dealt with all of the emotions that people deal with: happiness, sadness, anxiety.”
During the bad days, Hill liked to perform self-checks. He challenged himself with questions like “Do you really believe?” and “Do you trust the work?” and “Do you want it that badly?” Of course, the answer—to all of the above—was always yes.
Even so, Hill needed a break to reach his goal. He couldn’t sign himself to a contract, just like Pannone couldn’t, and Harper couldn’t, and Cheatham couldn’t, and Young couldn’t. What worked for Hill—what pushed him—on his improbable journey to the NBA was largely a feeling of being in full control. A sense that he could will his goal to fruition. That the onus rested squarely on his shoulders.
That he could create a break.
No, there were no guarantees that if he did everything right, then an opportunity would come. But for Hill, one thing was certain: if he didn’t, then an opportunity would not.
“A lot of people think, with me especially, Oh, he works hard. He’s going to get it,” Hill once said. “They don’t know the fine details, because I used to think that stuff just happens.”
Stuff didn’t just happen to Hill. In his mind, every decision he made, every action he took, every thought he had all factored into what transpired between January 2021, when he was riding the bench for Hapoel Jerusalem, and January 2022, when he signed a two-way contract with the Bulls.
“As humans, we have this unique ability to go for something and to become something,” Hill once wrote. “We have the ability to change our circumstances and our environment by the way we think. I’m not saying that this is easy. As a matter of fact, it’s the opposite. It’s probably one of the most difficult things you can do. It takes discipline and work to change your habits to become. Success does not far exceed personal development. We all have to do this type of self-examination. The ultimate question that you have to answer is: are you willing to become the person it takes to get what you want?”1
“Even if he wasn’t my son, it’s just an incredible story,” Machanda Hill, Malcolm’s mom, said. “To literally be on a roster on an NBA team—it’s unbelievable. I watched the games and no matter if he played two seconds or twenty minutes, I’m like, ‘He’s literally on the bench for an NBA team.’ But you can’t just write something down and hope it happens. He worked incredibly hard. He believed. And it happened.
“I think Oprah said, ‘Luck is preparation meeting opportunity,’” Machanda continued. “So you can get the opportunity, but if you’re not prepared, it’s not going to mean a whole lot. You can be prepared, but you need that opportunity. But when those things come together . . . man. They say, ‘Oh, Malcolm’s so lucky!’ Not quite.”
How can you be lucky when you don’t believe in luck?