The NBA has evolved, with smaller guards like Yuki Kawamura having some success. If you were coming up today, do you think your NBA chances would have been different? The Professor: Oh, absolutely. People now get a scholarship based on potential, so like your high school mixtape might get you a scholarship. There are a lot more outlets for exposure. I was a big secret. I was like completely unknown. Couldn’t even get on the radar of hardly anybody. And then when I did, it’s like I would show a lot of skill, a lot of talent, but I was so small that they’re like, ‘Well, how’s he going to play defense?’ So my high school mixtape would have been crazy. I think I would have had a better chance. I also think today’s basketball business is much more entrepreneurial, like just in general it’s much more open-minded and seizing all opportunities. I mean to think today, Bronny James can make the NBA, just a different time. Bronny’s not making the NBA in the 90s, whether he’s the son of LeBron or not; it’s just not happening. Because look, if that’s the case, Michael Jordan’s kids should have been in the NBA. They were as good as Bronny; at least one of them was probably better than Bronny. So, even Jordan’s kids couldn’t make it. But nowadays, it’s different. They go where the dollars are, marketability. When you think of AND1 and how popular it was, if it were like today, they probably would have had us in the league somehow, if anything, just to sell tickets. But yeah, I think my chances would have been better coming up in this era, just more exposure. But then again, I think the way it happened for me was the way it was supposed to happen. I’m just like a late bloomer. I went through puberty at a very late age.
