At some point this weekend, somebody was talking with Ja about his flight out of South Carolina and the possibility that it might be moved or delayed. His response was simple.
“If I don’t get on that plane, I’m fine. I’m already home.”
That probably explains this weekend better than anything I could write.
Ja came back to Dalzell and Sumter County with Nike and Hibbett for several days of basketball, events and giving back to the community that raised him. There was a youth camp, along with events at the Sumter County YMCA and Crestwood High School. The Ja 4 released early at Hibbett in Sumter, where people wrapped around the store waiting to get in. There was a tailgate, food drive, giveaways, music and food. And Nike and Hibbett completely rebuilt the basketball court behind the Morant family’s old home in Dalzell.
From the outside, it looked like a major activation for one of Nike’s signature athletes, and it was. I was blown away by all of it. But being there, it felt like something else. It really did feel like home.
I grew up here. I’ve known the Morants for going on 50 years. Our families, friends, basketball teammates and business lives have become connected in more ways than I could probably explain in one article. So when I stood in that backyard this weekend looking at a completely resurfaced court with new goals, Ja’s logo at center court and Nike branding around it, I wasn’t just thinking about a shoe company activation. I was thinking about what that court used to look like.
I remember going over there during Ja’s senior year to drop off water or Gatorade. Tee and Jamie were footing the bill for everything, as they always did, so whenever some of us could help, we’d bring something by and leave it in what Tee called the Hog Pen, his garage and man cave.
I went around back one day when nobody was there. It was the first time it was complete silence in that backyard. There were some old rusted chairs sitting around the court. The concrete had started showing its age, with cracks and grass growing through them. The rims and goals had seen better days. It was still a full basketball court in somebody’s backyard, which every one of us would have killed to have growing up, but it had been used. A lot.
Tee told the story again at the dedication this weekend. When Ja and Tap were younger, they would be coming home from an AAU tournament and start calling friends to meet them at the house because apparently playing basketball all weekend wasn’t enough. They wanted to keep playing. Eventually, they didn’t have to make the calls anymore. Kids just showed up because they knew they could.
That court became a safe haven for a lot of kids. They could come play basketball and nobody was going to run them off. It didn’t matter if it was hot or raining. Before the court had lights, they’d play as long as they could see.
And Jamie made sure everybody was taken care of. Sometimes that meant a plate of spaghetti. Sometimes it meant ice on an ankle. Sometimes it was a hug or whatever motherly touch a kid needed at that particular moment. She became a mother to a lot more kids than the ones who lived in that house.
That’s what that court was. A safe place to play, compete, grow up and be taken care of.
So watching Tee get emotional at the dedication made perfect sense to me. He built that court with his own money. There wasn’t a corporate sponsor involved or a Nike logo at center court. He built a place for his boys to play basketball, and somewhere along the way it became a place for a lot of other people’s kids too.
That’s also why I think what Nike and Hibbett did this weekend was so special. They didn’t try to create a story where one already existed. They recognized what had been built there, honored it and invested in making sure that court can continue serving kids for years to come.
The pavement is new. The goals are new. Ja’s logo now sits at center court. But the purpose of that place hasn’t changed. If anything, Nike and Hibbett have helped make it possible for another generation of kids to experience some of the same love, basketball and community that made that backyard important in the first place.
The rest of the weekend carried that same feeling.
At Crestwood, Ja’s logo was unveiled on the wall of the gym where he played high school basketball. I tried to imagine what that must feel like. You play in that gym when almost nobody outside our little part of South Carolina knows your name. Then you leave, become one of the most recognizable basketball players in the world, get your own signature line with Nike and come home to see your logo permanently displayed on the wall. There are some things success probably never makes normal.
At Hibbett, people wrapped around the store waiting for the early release of the Ja 4. Ja showed up with Kaari and helped sell some of the first pairs himself. At the YMCA and the other basketball events, members of the Twelve Time family were working with kids, putting them through drills and spending time with them.
Ja was also just Ja, which is difficult to explain to people who mostly know him through basketball or headlines. Leanne said it while we were there at the house: 12 just seems happier when he’s home, hanging around the house, around the kids and around his family. She’s right. You can almost see some of the weight come off him.
At one point, Ja was casually walking from the house toward the court. He stopped beside a kid who apparently hadn’t realized who was standing next to him. The kid finally looked up and froze.
He was wearing Ja 4s and one of the Ja “Don’t Sleep” shirts that had been given out that day. Now Ja Morant was standing beside him on the same backyard court that helped build Ja Morant. Ja smiled, gave him a fist bump and, if I remember correctly, handed him a basketball. The kid barely moved.
For Ja, it probably lasted a few seconds. I’m guessing that kid will remember it for the rest of his life.
The tailgate had the same mix of fun and purpose. There was a DJ, food trucks, giveaways and a food drive where people could bring nonperishable items for raffle tickets. Shoes, signed jerseys and tickets to see Ja play when Portland comes to Charlotte were among the prizes.
Kaari was pulling tickets for one of the signed jerseys, and before she went onstage I told her I was going to win it.
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
We went back and forth like that until she got onstage, pulled a ticket and handed the number to the DJ to announce. It was mine. I started walking toward the stage shaking my head yes, and Kaari immediately started shaking hers no.
Then came the Kaari response I probably should have expected: “You know you can’t keep this.”
We already knew we wouldn’t. We walked it over and gave it to Dina, founder of Randy’s Battle, so they could auction it to support their work. It was a funny little moment between Kaari and me, but it also fit the weekend. Things kept moving from one person to another in ways that could help somebody else.
For me, though, the most meaningful part still came back to that backyard. The whole Morant family was there: Tee, Phil, Ja, Mama, Donna, D and Kaari. Family from Twelve Time and Catch12 were there, along with old friends, old basketball teammates and even coaches connected to both our childhood teams and Ja’s high school career.
At one point before the court dedication, I went out and just stood looking at center court. Ja’s logo was sitting there where the cracked concrete used to be. One of my old teammates, Scip (Corbin Deas), came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder.
“This is crazy, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s crazy.”
And that was really all that needed to be said.
I saw a kid that day wearing a pair of Uncle Phils. Phil Morant is like a brother to me. We grew up when Nike was Nike. It was the brand. Now I’m standing in Dalzell watching a kid walk around in a pair of Nikes carrying Phil’s name while Tee is getting emotional talking about a court he paid to build for his sons and all the kids who eventually found their way there.
You couldn’t have written that story when we were kids, but standing there this weekend, it all somehow made sense.
People outside Sumter County know Ja Morant through basketball, social media and headlines. The people here know the real Ja, the real Morants. They know Tee and Jamie were opening that backyard before anybody was watching. They know kids were being fed before there were sponsors. They know that court became a place where young people were loved, held accountable and pushed to become better young men and women. They know the giving didn’t start when Ja got an NBA contract.
That’s why I don’t think Nike and Hibbett changed that backyard this weekend as much as they honored it. They took a place that already mattered, gave its history the treatment it deserved and made an investment in what it can mean to the next group of kids who find their way onto that court.
Years from now, some kid may play there who knows nothing about the cracked concrete, the rusted chairs or those calls Ja and Tap used to make on the way home from AAU tournaments. He may only know that there’s a beautiful basketball court in Dalzell where he’s welcome to play.
That’s probably exactly how it should be.
Standing there looking at everything that had changed, I kept coming back to what Ja had said inside the house.
“If I don’t get on that plane, I’m fine. I’m already home.”
He was. And for a few days this weekend, a lot of us were too.
