One of the things that has helped make Duke Basketball sort of self-sustaining is that you see players who join the Brotherhood because of someone they admired as a kid.
The first time we noticed this was
when JJ Redick told the story about seeing Christian Laettner hit The Shot against Kentucky and telling his dad, then and there, I’m going to Duke.
He was about seven.
Khaman Maluach stayed up late and paid extra so that he could see Zion Williamson on his phone as a young player in Uganda. Most recently, we know that Sebastian Wilkins was a Duke fan at a very young and that his mother took him to campus when he was about six.
Well you can add Jayson Tatum to that list too. Who was his idol?
Jabari Parker.
Here’s what he told Duke Blue Planet: “Jabari, from a player standpoint, is like the reason, the prototype of why I came to Duke. “I was a big fan of his in high school. You know, I watched closely what college he chose. I watched him closely his freshman year.”
He would have been 15 at the time.
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