It wasnt like when I went to Europe and your teammates have been around American players enough to know some English. I forgot to even call my mom. "I didn't expect much out of basketball," Sykes said. Sykes father, James, died of a heart attack June 6, 2012. He wasn't. "People don't even know the half of it," Sykes said. And for him to do that, it was just so overwhelming. KJ will look up to his dad. Keifer Sykes was on campus after his freshman season at Wisconsin-Green Bay, taking summer classes and going through workouts, when his phone rang around 7:30 a.m. His older brother, Jarvis Tucker, was on the other end. He then joined the franchises G League affiliate, the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, and after shining as the teams floor general, he was called up Dec. 27, made his NBA debut against Charlotte on Dec. 29 the day before his 28th birthday scored his first NBA points against his hometown Bulls on Dec. 31 and signed a guaranteed deal for the rest of the season Jan. 7. He still gets frazzled thinking back to cutting KJ's umbilical cord, which he hesitantly failed to prune on first attempt, and only succeeded on the second snip under the loving demands of his father that he cut his son's cord. We had guys on our team trying to feed their kids fast food. Hes gonna have the film footage, and its the continuation of truly one of the amazing stories in sport.. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Pacers rookie Keifer Sykes' remarkable rise from inner-city Chicago, 3.32995855, After hitting $1 million shot, Keifer Sykes signed with Pacers to be closer to home, a dagger 3 and layup on back-to-back plays, Pacers rookie Keifer Sykes' remarkable rise from inner-city Chicago. In this, Dawson's final year at Michigan State, My'Shawn has lived with him, the two of them bonding, sharing meals in a small off-campus apartment. Hes really popular in the community, and were just so proud of him. My'Shawn's been to almost every Spartans home game this season, sitting with Dawson's high school coach, Johnny Ryan, and a former teammate, Devonte Harris. The next day, Bloodman played 18 minutes against Kentucky. But mom? Where was Keifer Sykes born? if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,600],'biographyhost_com-medrectangle-4','ezslot_1',164,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-biographyhost_com-medrectangle-4-0'); Throughout his career, Sykesrepresentedseveral basketball clubs worldwide like Anyang KGC (Korean Basketball league), Ankara DSI (Turkish Club), Felice Scandone (Italian Club), etc. Antetokounmpo leads Milwaukee against Brooklyn after 45-point game. The consent submitted will only be used for data processing originating from this website. Every mom always finds out. I told my family, 'I think the basket is moving or something,'"Sykes said, laughing. So many missed calls from his girlfriend. Its all demonstrated in the documentary, Carlisle said after the game. I was gonna have to fight an uphill battle, so I was already ready for it if I didnt get drafted.. After the euphoria of winning TBT and signing a training camp deal with the Pacers, Sykes faced another hurdle when he was cut before the season started. If he's in town, have him around practice, around the locker room. Stephen A.: Lakers won't advance beyond play-in without LeBron. Keifer, along with six of his siblings and half-siblings, took the red line train with mom and dad to City Hall. "I was pacing in the waiting room. "That was the hardest part, telling her, and the first thing she said was, 'She's going to be cute.'". For more than a few college athletes, this is the side of life the public does not see. He says there's more than $5,000 of his own cash allotted toward parenthood. I didn't want my children to go through that. So I really had to focus in and just go out there and do what I do.". Branden does not carry his father's last name. "It's always been this way, really, but off the record, it's demographics, number one, and popularity of basketball players today," one coach said. We come from poverty. "The sacrifices she made, man. In that week, Sykes averaged 28.7 points, five rebounds, and four assists per game while shooting 53.6% from the field, 50% from three, and leading the Phoenix to a 30 record. You scope college basketball, and the stories are everywhere. [17], On November 13, Sykes made his professional debut in a 10482 win over the Texas Legends, recording eight points, one rebound, six assists and three steals in 17 minutes off the bench. Pacers swingmen Torrey Craig, Justin Anderson enter NBA's COVID-19 protocols, Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. He has just one full sibling, James Sykes Jr., and seven more half-siblings: DaVon, Jarvis, Kristie, Jameeka,. Fortunately, despite varied situations, some of which are depicted below, many have happy circumstances. Then he sank a 17-footer over . "I walk in the door, my parents are sitting at the table. And I was just like, OK, Imma kill, because if you dont do your thing, youre out.. They want me to stay overseas to make more money for them. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, but Brogdon will never forget his introduction to Sykes. [19], In the summer of 2016, Sykes joined the Golden State Warriors in the 2016 NBA Summer League. Neither player entered the game, and McKinnie has since been waived, but that night McKinnie was just proud to exchange matching No. Four-year starter Gary Bell Jr. hopes to have his son, Gary Bell III, in the stands come the first weekend of theNCAA Tournamentin Seattle or Portland. More than a decade later, and after making a name for himself overseas, the only box Sykes said he had left to check was to beat the odds his younger self foretold and finally play in an NBA game. "As a coach, you would love to have all parents talk to him in a lot of ways. Due to his success, he was invited to the 2016 NBA D-League Elite Camp. Former Pacers guard Keifer Sykes, center, hosts a free youth camp at the Irsay Family YMCA in Indianapolis on April 30, 2022. Like Sykes, he opted not to turn pro early despite having a child to feed. Obviously the city is gonna be so happy,"Sykes said. " "He's earned it really starting in the summer just with his approach, his work ethic, his level of improvement, which has been gradual and consistent. "(My mom) put it together after the fact," Sykes said. Follow IndyStar Pacers beat writer James Boyd on Twitter: @RomeovilleKid. "The milk is spilt all over the place," she recalled saying. Buchanan III is expected to stay in the hospital until at least this coming Sunday as the scar on his heart slowly starts to heal. I thought I was going to pass out, but I stayed strong. She thought he had dropped something or whatever. This is a man who fondly recalls buying a $134 ring from Walmart the night before he proposed. Yet, Forbes in 2019 evaluated that he must be receiving a minimum NBA salary which was $900,000. Im not entitled to anything, and Im still working. Sykes said his mother will be in attendance for his sixthNBA game and first asaguaranteed player Saturday night when the Pacers host Utah at Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Almost every player interviewed for this story was scared to tell mom. I asked a tearful Keifer Sykes (@ksykesyb), whose contract was guaranteed by the #Pacers, how he thinks his mom, Lisa (@Supermom00767), will react when he talks to her.She deserve this more than anybody. We do a lot of things to help his daughter because as a single mom . Like Sykes, Dawson's been a father since he was a junior in high school. Keifer Sykes: Waived by Indiana. [22] The film follows Sykes' path from high school to his brush with the NBA. He's got a goofy personality and caring heart but also boasts a paternal side that's as sanguine as it is dedicated. The former Indiana Pacers point guard prefers a low-key personal life. He'll have his headstone then, and he'll have his son and grandson touching it. His father, his best friend, was dead. A chain response of fear, as it often does with teen pregnancies, triggered a stress reaction. Like Freeman, Johnson's been a father for only a few weeks. Sykes went on to become a three-time First-Team All-Horizon League honoree and two-time Horizon League Player of the Year, solidifying himself as one of the best players in Wisconsin-Green Bay history. I can't wait to talk to her. "It's crazy, I told my son I'll never play 2K until I get on it, so that was kind of motivation for me. Why do the Pacers keep losing close games? He worries about his 4-year-old son, Keifer Jr., who lives in a neighborhood in Chicago that Sykes knows is violent. How long has it been since Dawson spoke to his dad directly? The next thing I know I hear the coaches banging on the door. However,Sykeswas quickly thrust into the spotlight because of a COVID-19 outbreak within the team that sent Brogdon and Caris LeVert, who had been filling inas the team's starting point guard, into the league's health and safety protocols. SMU sophomore Keith Frazier, who's been suspended for the season, is a dad to a boy who's nearly 3 years old. It's free school, and I'm getting it, so let's go.". The two remain close, and Harrington said hes thankful the gun violence that changed his life didnt have the same effect on the player he nicknamed Special K., I just started calling him Special K because I knew that kid had something special about him, Harrington said. "I can finally say I made it," Sykes said. I've heard a couple of times him screaming, 'Go, Daddy!' A family of seven crammed into a two-bedroom place, where they lived until Sykes got to high school. He does, however, remember the last time he saw his father, when James Sykes dropped him off at either a train or bus station to go back to Wisconsin Green-Bay to continue summer classes and workouts. [3], After graduating high school, Sykes committed to play college basketball for coach Brian Wardle and eventually alongside Marshall teammates Alfonzo McKinnie and Vincent Garret, at Green Bay. After a successful college career, Sykesplayed the 2015 NBA Summer Leaguewith the Cleveland Cavaliers. Manage Settings However, he regularlymentions his children during interviewsand posts pictures of them on his social media handles. Also learn how He earned most of networth at the age of 27 years old? "Because if dont nobody else deserve it, Keifer deserves it., Sykes has totaled 33 games in his NBA career, 10 of which he didnt play in. That wasn't the case with a 7-footer at Louisiana Tech named Joniah White. , Im not forgetting these things. There are major facets to these players' lives that are never seen, seldom known, but emotionally significant signposts toward personal growth and elemental struggle. One team has a player with two children born from two women three months apart. Ithink the basket was moving. Having seen each other from afar in previous years, they met again, of all places, in an ER when she was 23. We put in all that work, and they didn't pay us. Joining his fifth club in 12 months, Keifer Sykes' path to his impressive NBL debut has been the continuation of a globetrotting journey for the Chicago native, who still has a goal to reach the NBA. Sykes could match upagainst his "best friend" for the first time in the NBA when Indiana hosts Chicago on Feb. 4. My'Shawn's mother lives back in Indiana; it was her idea to have father and child live together this season, in part because she's working night shifts at a Speedway to save money and find some quiet that was lost during the early years of My'Shawn's life. Magee is now enrolled at Grand Canyon University. We both were really scared. But in true Sykes fashion, he blocked out the naysayers and helped the Phoenix make the playoffs, finishing fourth in the 10-team league before being knocked out in the final four. How much does Keifer Sykes weigh? On April 5, the 5-11 guard was autographing mini basketballs and. He admits now it was a lot to go through. When James passed away, it was hard on everybody, but something definitely clicked in Keifer, Wardle said. The hardest thing was the drive. You can go to college. "Most four-year players have a teammate at some point who is either having a child or has had a child," Illinois state coach Dan Muller, who's coached a few dads, said. Sykes credits his humbleness to his parents, James and Lisa Sykes, who were featured in a documentary about Sykes rise to high school and college stardom called, Chi-Town. The film shows the harrowing circumstances that he and his family were subjected to in inner-city Chicago, including rampant gun violence, which left one of Sykes' former high school teammates and a former coach paralyzed, while another former teammate went to prison for armed robbery. Sykes spent one season in South Korea, but he said that was just the beginning of the hardships he faced as he continued playing in Italy, Greece, Turkey and China. Every time dad gets home, son takes it right to the hoop. However, no valid sources have yet revealed his annual pay in numbers. He averaged 11.2 points and 3.3 assists per game. He was 16. A lot of people really wanted to get to that league, especially at that time when COVID was everywhere in the world and they just had less cases," Sykes said. We playing my hometown team, it was just my birthday (Dec. 30), everybody is excited like, 'You finally (got) the call up.' INDIANAPOLIS Keifer Sykes remembers every doubter. I met with director Nick Budabin and star Keifer Sykes, of the new documentary Chi-Town (which I also reviewed), on Monday, March 12, at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival.The film, which follows Sykes from the end of his high-school basketball career through the end of college, and just beyond, is like a sequel, of sorts, to the great Steve James' 1994 Hoop Dreams. Sykes joined Indianas G League affiliate, the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, and clawed his way back to the Pacers, who eventually signed him to a guaranteed deal for the rest of the 2021-22 season. After shining with the Austin Spurs throughout the 2015-16 campaign, Sykes joined the Warriors for the 2016 Summer League, but he wasnt picked up by Golden State or another franchise ahead of the season. The Cavaliers went on to win the 2014 ACC regular-season title and earn a No. He has not revealed his current relationship or marital status. You can practically hear the smile through the phone as Gathers, who was wearing scrubs that didn't fit his 6-8, 275-pound frame, tells the story. With the championship and money on the line, he drained the game-winning 3 to lift Boeheims army to a 69-67 walk-off victory. Sykes is featured in the 2018 documentary film Chi-Town, produced and directed by Nick Budabin. The player is now back at school, away from his child, but not on the team. You'd be amazed at what these guys don't know about parenting. "She heard a thump, which was him falling over, but she didn't think nothing of it. Back home in Chicago, one of Sykes former high school coaches, Shawn Shake Harrington, watched it all unfold in tears. A lot of people don't see the world until college. As COVID-19 began to change the landscape of everyday life, Sykes signed a one-year deal with the Phoenix, turning down more money in Europe and betting on himself to turn his stint down under into a springboard to the NBA. There's too many [coaches] calling me. She took care of everybody, man. Mitchell said he keeps in touch with Sykes and, because of the time difference between the U.S. and Australia, the Phoenix often watch Pacers games when they get out of practice in the afternoon. Wardle describes it as the hardest situation of his career, far beyond anything he faced during the summer of 2013, when accusations of verbal mistreatment from former Green Bay players threatened his job. I was kind of sad. Moments after making the million-dollar shot, it was reported by multiple outlets that Sykes signed with the Pacers, bookending a truly remarkable day. He is at Green Bay because that staff impressed his father. He's going beyond the expectations of being there for his son. 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