{"id":254268,"date":"2026-06-03T21:04:36","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T21:04:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/254268\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T21:04:36","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T21:04:36","slug":"these-new-york-knicks-went-to-the-same-high-school-in-san-antonio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/254268\/","title":{"rendered":"These New York Knicks went to the same high school \u2013 in San Antonio"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a couple of New York Knicks<\/a>, Game 1 of the NBA Finals in San Antonio<\/a> isn\u2019t just a work trip \u2013 it\u2019s a homecoming.<\/p>\n

Jordan Clarkson<\/a> and Kevin McCullar Jr.<\/a> both attended Wagner High School in San Antonio, just a ten-minute drive from where they\u2019ll be tipping off against their hometown team tonight.<\/p>\n

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It comes with a lot of memories \u2013 and Clarkson, who attended Wagner from 2006-2010 and grew up during a dominant, four-title era for the Spurs, remembers it well.<\/p>\n

Knicks vs. Spurs<\/a>: Where did NBA Finals stars play high school basketball?<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe energy is always amazing,\u201d Clarkson told reporters about growing up during that era during a media availability on Tuesday. \u201cMy stepmom worked at the Westin so I would see the parades through the hotel balconies and stuff. I would sneak around there and\u2026take pictures and run up on players for autographs. I was definitely that kid.\u201d<\/p>\n

That hasn\u2019t slowed him down, however, when playing against his hometown team: he\u2019s averaged 20 points per game when playing the Spurs across his career.<\/p>\n

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He\u2019s been a strong presence off the bench for New York this season, averaging 8.6 points per game during this regular season and 15.3 points per game across his 12-year NBA career. Back at Wagner, he led the Thunderbirds to back-to-back state semifinal appearances and was named the San Antonio high school player of the year his senior season.<\/p>\n

McCullar Jr. made his own mark on the Wagner Thunderbirds years after Clarkson left, leading them to the 6A state title game as a sophomore in 2017. He\u2019s been earning some more playing time for the Knicks this season, moving up the depth chart after a strong stint while Josh Hart<\/a> was out with an injury. He\u2019s averaged 2.2 points for the Knicks since being drafted in 2024.<\/p>\n

Clarkson, McCullar Jr. and the Knicks will open the NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs in San Antonio tonight, tipping off at 8:30 eastern.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: These Wagner High alumni return home for NBA Finals \u2014 as New York Knicks<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a couple of New York Knicks, Game 1 of the NBA Finals in San Antonio isn\u2019t just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99100,28586,4778,99098,37011,9,11,1104,10,9416,61699,36718,99099],"class_list":["post-254268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-hometown-team","tag-jordan-clarkson","tag-josh-hart","tag-kevin-mccullar-jr","tag-nba-finals","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-new-york-news","tag-san-antonio","tag-spurs","tag-the-spurs","tag-wagner-high-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}