from a small town zero star recruit to the most electrifying player in the nba today this is the story of john moran's small town dreams demetrius jamel morant better known as john morant wouldn't just make his dreams come true but his father teased as well he had basketball dreams much larger than the town of dalzell south carolina with just over 2 000 people that his son was born into t morant won a high school basketball state championship playing alongside ray allen before going on to play at division two claflin university he was considering a professional career overseas and was ready to live his dream until some news would change his life forever t's wife jamie was pregnant with jaw giving up on his aspirations t directed all of his energy to helping john make a career out of basketball to even hand build a small cement basketball court in their backyard this is where t pushed jaw to be great and where jaw fell in love with the grind from mastering the art of the step back jumper to doing tire jumps with tractor tires the two would spend hours at a time working on jaws skills and athleticism looking back on the sacrifice jaw said instead of going to play basketball he stayed to raise me that's my motivation i'm living my dream and his dream right now jaw had to work that much harder to achieve this because his physical stature didn't scream at future nba player in fact josh stood at just five foot nine as a freshman in high school so he actually didn't suit up for the varsity basketball team until his sophomore year he also didn't play for a well-known aau circuit growing up job played with the south carolina hornets a small grassroots team based in columbia south carolina that lacked the backing of a major shoe company that other top aau teams had but he was teammates with zion williamson for a season which provides for some crazy throwback photos that almost seemed fake and i'm sure plenty of lobs from jada zion back then diamond in the rough while the infamous saying is curiosity killed the cat curiosity led to jog getting discovered even though jaw was coming off a season in which he received all-state honors as a junior in high school he was not being recruited by colleges the summer before his senior year jaw was a late addition to a camp put on by chandler parsons aau program murray state assistant basketball coach james kane was there scouting a different player at the time kane ventured down a hallway in pursuit of the concession stand and as he was eating his doritos and sipping on a soda kane heard balls bouncing in an auxiliary gym so out of curiosity he decided to take a peek he was immediately taken aback by jaws play in a game of three on three and said it only took a few minutes to realize jaw was special kane was so impressed with what he saw that he had murray state's head coach matt mcmahon drive up to the camp to personally witness jaw in action mcmahon quickly agreed with kane's assessment so murray state's recruitment of jaw began when it came time to offer a scholarship john was so under-recruited at the time that his mom asked kane if the scholarship was for four full years i just started laughing i was like yeah it's a four year scholarship but he's only going to be there for two years said kane at the time 24 7 sports and rivals two of the most notable voices in raiding high school athletes and following their recruitments didn't even give jaw a rating and showed him as having zero offers outside of murray state but kane firmly believed that his hankering for a snack resulted in him finding a diamond in the rough as jock committed to play for murray state making a name for himself when job first arrived at murray state he was faced with the harsh reality that he still had a ways to go before making it and just accepting a d1 offer didn't mean he had done so joe was far from being viewed as a big man on campus like a traditional top basketball recruit would be josh said coming from being under the radar i could sit somewhere and nobody would know me that lack of notoriety quickly began to change following an impressive freshman season with the racers where josh showed he belonged in division 1 basketball he averaged 12. 7 points 6. 5 assists and 6.
3 rebounds per game that year on his way to earning first team all-ohio valley conference honors following a season where he did it all for murray state and helped him reach the ncaa tournament josh started to find himself on nba draft prospect lists he solidified his spot on these after being one of just 20 players invited to chris paul's elite guard game during the summer after his freshman season with newfound attention from pro scouts jaw took this momentum and ran with it as he grabbed the attention of the college basketball world with his sophomore campaign that season jaw averaged 24. 5 points 10 assists 5. 7 rebounds and 1.
8 steals per game jia was named ovc player of the year as he became the first ncaa player to ever average more than 20 points and 10 assists per game as he also led the country in assists that year his popularity then soared after shining under march madness's bright lights in a first round win he became just the eighth player in tournament history to record a triple-double as he recorded 17 points 16 assists and 11 rebounds even though he and the racers fell in the next round john didn't go out quietly going off for 28 points john became the talk of the entire basketball community and declared for the 2019 nba draft making the jump job becoming a fan favorite with his electrifying playstyle and eye-popping numbers still wasn't enough to silence all the doubts that surrounded him he dealt with questions and concerns about his game's ability to translate to the nba level was his success the product of playing in a small conference not traditionally known for basketball is he too skinny to score on and guard grown men will he be a flash in the pan and never fully establish in the league after being fun to watch in college like a jimmer for dead this was the noise jaw heard as the grizzlies drafted him second overall but it drove him to prove it was exactly that just noise his rookie season was his opportunity to show everyone that he belonged in this league that's exactly what jaw did that year as he took home the nba rookie of the year award he averaged 17. 8 points 7. 3 assists and 3.
