[ad_1]
For 3 a long time we’ve coated many wonderful basketball characters, however some stand above the remaining—not solely due to their on-court abilities (although these are all the time related), however due to how they influenced and proceed to affect basketball tradition, and thus influenced SLAM. In the meantime, SLAM has additionally modified these gamers’ lives in varied methods, as we’ve documented their careers with traditional covers, legendary images, wonderful tales, compelling movies and extra.
We compiled a gaggle of people (programming notice: 30 entries, not 30 individuals complete) who imply one thing particular to SLAM and to our viewers. Learn the full list here and order your copy of SLAM 248, the place this listing was initially revealed, here.
Most gamers within the “SLAM 30” would, actually, be in most basketball retailers’ rankings of essentially the most related 30 gamers of the final three a long time. Brandon Jennings, nonetheless, is a particular case. Due to a very symbiotic relationship made doable by Brandon’s love of SLAM, the individuals he surrounded himself with and our admitted bias to gamers who fuck with us as onerous as we fuck with them, BJ is like “our” All-Star.
The connection began often sufficient—not that it didn’t imply the world to a younger Brandon. He received what we used to name a “little Punk” story in our highschool part, shot in his Compton (CA) Dominguez uniform and interviewed by Ryan Jones. Only a sophomore on the time, Jennings remembers it fondly. “That was my first look in SLAM,” he says on a current Zoom. “Within the Dominguez locker room. I used to be so fucking excited! Like, Everyone is gonna see me. I’m recognized now. The SLAM factor was all the time the largest factor in sports activities and basketball magazines. Once you did the quilt shoot with Sebastian [Telfair] and LeBron James and I used to be a child within the seventh grade…I needed to be like them. SLAM was all the time that stamp of approval.”
Jennings’ path received extra distinctive from there—as a participant and a SLAM topic—as he transferred to Oak Hill Academy in VA for his final two years of highschool. Not a surprising transfer, however to journey all the best way from L.A. and go for 2 years was relatively courageous. BJ made a pair appearances in SLAM/associated pubs whereas he was a Warrior. In August ’07, whereas in NYC for the second annual Elite 24 sport (wherein, he proudly jogs my memory, he set a report that was by no means damaged for assists within the sport with 23), he posed for the quilt of our particular PUNKS journal alongside fellow high guards Jrue Vacation, Tyreke Evans and Lance Stephenson. Half a yr later, again within the Massive Apple for the Jordan Model Traditional, we shot Jennings at Grand Central Terminal for our Excessive Faculty All-American First Workforce. He’s received fond recollections of each shoots however does share the one gripe he has with us in our lengthy historical past. “I’m not gonna entrance—I used to be mad I didn’t get the diary that yr,” Jennings says of the storied column that was penned by Evans that season.
Jennings’ path took two massively surprising turns after highschool. For one, the College of Arizona commit selected to not wait out any debates surrounding his tutorial eligibility and turned professional—in Italy! For an additional, he did so in Underneath Armours, changing into the primary signing the well-known “soccer” model ever made in hoops. UA’s foray into basketball was largely led by Kris Stone, a former SLAM Promoting Supervisor who had a aptitude for advertising, a perception in Brandon and a loyalty to the Basketball Bible. We turned, in some ways, the right place for UA to hype its transfer—with Jennings on the forefront. And since we’re all the time suckers for good entry to a dope baller with persona—we have been down. After a pair extra small appearances in our pages, Jennings’ subsequent SLAM hit was large time: the European adventurer was on the quilt of SLAM 128 subsequent to a extra standard Continental prospect—Spanish wunderkind Ricky Rubio.
Future Shock, certainly.
“That was so unreal for me,” Jennings remembers at this time. “The choice I’d made. Ricky being who he was. I used to be a bit of nervous. The primary time I met him was at that shoot, the night time earlier than we performed in opposition to one another in Barcelona. I met his mother, too, relaxation in peace. Ricky and I simply shared a bit of chit-chat that day. We knew we have been about to do some large shit.”
Jennings’ time within the L got here earlier than Rubio’s. A short time after that cowl, he was within the 2009 Draft, going tenth general to the Milwaukee Bucks. And shortly after that, in simply his seventh NBA sport, Jennings dropped 55 factors. On the Golden State Warriors and their rookie PG, Stephen Curry. What have been we speculated to do? Put him on his first solo cowl, in fact. Behold SLAM 135, an Adam Fleischer-Atiba Jefferson manufacturing that featured Jennings bursting off the entrance web page in a fireplace pink Bucks uni. “That meant that I made it,” Jennings says. “I used to be that child operating to the shop to get that journal. Now I’m on the quilt. That was a full-circle second.”
Jennings performed all 82 as a rook and copped a solo KICKS cowl the subsequent summer time. He’d go on to play 555 video games within the League, bouncing from Milwaukee to a couple completely different spots earlier than ending his profession as a Buck in ’18. It was an applicable ending, as a result of it linked Jennings to the Giannis Period in Milwaukee and vastly prolonged the lifespan of his #BucksInSix quote.
And though he stopped enjoying, Jennings has stayed recent and related. Most notably, he’s the founding father of streetwear model Tuff Crowd. And in one other full-circle second, the model lately collabed with Underneath Armour and its present signature hooper, none apart from Curry.
You’ll by no means guess the place you’ll be able to read more about it…
Picture by Atiba Jefferson. Featured picture by way of Getty Photographs.
[ad_2]
Source link
