SLAM and Tuff Crowd Are Maintaining It Hostile 

Ever since I used to be rising up, SLAM has been the most well liked and largest journal ever. Each first of the month, everyone knew that you simply go to 7-Eleven and also you go choose up that new SLAM Journal. 

Clearly, I used to be at all times the one to have it. My mother would take me to 7-Eleven and the donut store, and that was the primary two issues I’d ask for within the morning, each first of the month. 

Seeing that new SLAM as a seventh grader, it made me work tougher. As I used to be organising all my objectives as a hooper — taking part in within the McDonald’s Sport, being a nationwide champion in Excessive Faculty, and ultimately making it to the NBA — being in SLAM was proper there on the prime of my listing. 

Once I was 12, I knew that if I made the SLAM cowl someday, our lives would change. 

The primary time I believed I may very well be in SLAM was after I noticed Sebastian Telfair and LeBron James on the duvet as highschool basketball gamers. That proper there took it to the following stage for me. Just some years later, earlier than my tenth grade yr at Dominguez Excessive Faculty in LA, there I used to be, doing my first photoshoot to be in SLAM.

I used to be within the locker room, simply imply mugging the entire time. Simply letting the world know: There’s a hostile younger child from Compton coming.

I simply at all times liked the grittiness, and seeing a few of the finest basketball gamers from all over the world within the journal. You have been at all times listening to the hype about gamers for the primary time. Because the rivals that we’re, everybody needs to go towards the perfect, and SLAM at all times stored you up to date on who was coming and who was subsequent. 

Quick ahead to now, and listening to that SLAM goes into the Corridor of Fame on its thirtieth anniversary — it’s effectively deserved. It’s only a large second for actual basketball. With every little thing that they put into the streets, the love of basketball has undoubtedly paid off for them. I’m simply completely satisfied for everybody that I’ve recognized on the journal over time. 

To have fun SLAM’s thirtieth anniversary, I needed to attach my very own model Tuff Crowd with SLAM for a fireplace assortment. Engaged on this collab collectively is simply one other full circle second in my life. 

As everybody is aware of, I by no means went to varsity. Me going throughout the nation to Oak Hill early, then making the choice to skip faculty, exit the nation and go abroad — my route in my life has at all times been totally different. Even retiring early and beginning Tuff Crowd was totally different.  

That’s what this assortment represents. That taking a threat is nothing, when you could have that perception in you.

The enjoyment of taking a threat and never figuring out what’s coming is the fantastic thing about life.

At Tuff Crowd College, we maintain it hostile. It’s the varsity and mindset for everybody that has taken a unique path in life to get to the place they need to go.

We needed to make use of the unique SLAM brand for this assortment, with that grittiness, to take all of it the best way again to ’94. We’ve bought a coach’s jacket, two hoodies, two tees and a few recreation shorts which can be loopy. It’s about having that teaching swag, and celebrating the thought of faculty spirit and taking part in by your personal guidelines.

This collab can be simply exhibiting how a lot the sport has meant to me. Method again after I was 12, I wasn’t fallacious. Being in that SLAM Journal as a tenth grader, after which on the duvet at 18 years-old in Italy and once more as a NBA rookie, actually did change my life.

All these years later, this assortment additionally reveals how we’re at all times greater than simply basketball gamers. Having the ability to put the ball down and get into one thing exterior of it, however nonetheless be linked to the sport of basketball, is only a nice feeling of delight for what I’m constructing with Tuff Crowd and the place I’ve been in my life. 

And I’ve bought SLAM Journal to thank for giving me that inspiration from the very starting. 

SLAM Journal photograph credit score: Drew Reynolds.