By the time I was growing up, SLAM was the hottest and biggest magazine ever. On the first of the month, everyone knew you were going to 7-Eleven to pick up that new SLAM magazine.
Obviously I’ve always had it. My mom would take me to 7-Eleven and the donut shop, and those were the first two things I would ask for in the morning on the first day of the month.
Seeing that new SLAM as a 7th grader made me work harder. When I was setting all my goals as a hooper to play in the McDonald’s Game, be a national champion in high school and eventually make it to the NBA, being in SLAM was right at the top of my list.
When I was 12 years old, I knew that if I made a SLAM cover one day, our lives would change.
The first time I thought I might be in SLAM was when I saw Sebastian Telfair and LeBron James as high school basketball players on the cover. That’s where it took it to the next level for me. Just a few years later, before my 10th grade year at Dominguez High School in Los Angeles, there I was, doing my first photoshoot to be in SLAM.
I was in the locker room just wanting to hack the whole time. Just let the world know. There’s a hostile young kid coming from Compton.
I’ve just always loved the grit, and seeing some of the best basketball players from around the world in the magazine. You always heard the hype about the players first. As the competitors that we are, everyone wants to go up against the best and SLAM always let you know who’s coming and who’s next.
Fast forward to now, and hearing that SLAM is entering the Hall of Fame on its 30th anniversary is well-deserved. This is just a big moment for real basketball. With everything they’ve put out on the street, their love of basketball has definitely paid off. I’m just happy for everyone I’ve gotten to know at the magazine over the years.
To celebrate SLAM’s 30th anniversary, I wanted to bring my own brand, Tuff Crowd, together with SLAM for a fire collection. Working together on this collaboration is another complete moment in my life.
As everyone knows, I never went to college. I was soon driving across the country to Oak Hill, then making the decision to skip college, get out of the country, and go overseas; my life path has always been different. Even coming out of early retirement and starting Tuff Crowd was different.
That’s what this collection is all about. That taking risks is nothing when you have that faith in yourself.
The joy of taking risks and not getting it right is the beauty of life.
At Tuff Crowd University, we keep it hostile. It is the school and mindset for anyone who has taken a different path in life to get where they want to go.
We wanted to use the original SLAM logo for this set, with that toughness to take it back to ’94. We have a training jacket, two shirts, two tees and some game shorts that are crazy. It’s about having that coaching swag and celebrating the idea of school spirit and playing by your own rules.
This partnership also shows how much the game has meant to me. When I was 12, I wasn’t wrong. Being in that SLAM magazine as a 10th grader and then on the cover in Italy at 18 and again as an NBA rookie really changed my life.
After all these years, this collection also shows how we are always bigger than just basketball players. Being able to put the ball down and get into something outside of that, but still be connected to the game of basketball, is just a great sense of pride in what I’m building with the Tuff Crowd and where I’ve been in my life. .
And I have SLAM Magazine to thank for giving me that inspiration in the first place.
SLAM Magazine photo by Drew Reynolds.
