“Coming Into His Own”, Grant Garners Major Interest
Ron Bailey, Publisher
June 15, 2006 – DeMatha Catholic High School (Hyattsville, MD) senior center/forward Jerai Grant has been around basketball his entire life. That’s natural when your dad was an 11 year NBA veteran who presently coaches in that league. But it’s now, that he’s really coming into his own.
“I went to all the games” growing up, recounted Grant after a Nike Hoop City summer league game. That was natural, as his father, Harvey Grant, played with the Washington Bullets, Portland Trailblazers, and Philadelphia 76ers. The opportunity to be up front and personal with the best basketball league on the planet intrigues most, but it’s not without drawbacks. For Jerai, one was other people’s attitudes towards him. Grant, a thoughtful and laid back young guy shared, “People would assume I get treated specially by others…They put me in a totally different category than everybody else”.
Jerai’s first organized hoops experience was at the age of nine, when he played for Prince George’s County Maryland’s Kettering Boys and Girls Club. His relationship with the sport was not love at first sight, as he explained “I didn’t really start liking basketball until I was 13”. Prior to that, Grant felt some pressure to “make others proud”, but during that initial year of teen-hood, “I started doing it for myself”.
At that same time, he began utilizing his father as a resource. Prior to embracing the game, Jerai, like many young guys resisted his dad’s tutelage, confiding “I wasn’t trying to hear all that stuff”. That changed, according to him, when “Eventually it dawned on me, he did play in the NBA and knows what he is talking about”.
Jerai Grant (left), is shown here with Maryland Madness teammates Evan Baker (23), and Garvey Young (21).
Harvey, now a coach with the Washington Wizards, laughingly recounted via telephone, he and his son’s early basketball relationship. “It was like pulling teeth” the elder Grant said. “He didn’t’ look at me as a basketball player, he looked at me as his Dad”.
Initially, Jerai focused on playing with aggression, after which he worked on gaining offensive patience, while all along developing his technical skills on the court. As a junior at DeMatha last season, Grant’s hard work became evident. Using his self-identified strengths of quickness and length, the 6 ‘8”, 220 lb Grant averaged around 14 points, 10 rebounds, and 3.5 blocks for DeMatha (34-1) and it’s coach, Mike Jones.
During the course of the year, Jerai displayed a strong, all-around post game, marked by the ability to not only bang down low, but skillfully pass to open teammates. He also illustrated a growing propensity to sink 15 foot jumpers with regularity, while consistently utilizing a drop/swing step out of the high and mid posts for easy shot opportunities. Jones shared after a recent summer league game that Grant’s “best move will always be his jump hook”, and then lauded the young man for “being patient in the post, keeping his feet on the ground, and passing out of the post. He’s not a black hole”.