Derrion Reid came into Friday evening’s game against Team Durant knowing it would be his final Peach Jam appearance as a high school player.
His Peach Jam squad, Team Thad, won 76-65, giving them a 2-3 record and fourth place finish in Pool B play. Despite competing and having a chance to win in each of its five games, the performance wasn’t enough to push Team Thad into this weekend’s championship tournament bracket.
But the entire week at the star-studded annual event helped the 6-foot-7, 180-pound 5-star prospect from Grovetown High add something more important than wins to his repertoire.
Experience.
Case in point: During Team Thad’s 67-59 win against NJ Scholars Wednesday, Reid and company had to fight through what the Grovetown senior called “some tricks and adversity” from officials. But instead of complaining about it in the game, Reid took it as an opportunity to grow his intangibles as a premier player on a big stage.
“Going through things like that, it just helps me to know how to keep my head on straight,” Reid said. “Some plays or calls we get. Some can go either way, and you just have to push through it mentally and get better and learn how to keep your head on and finish strong in the end.”
Finish strong is exactly what Reid did — both in that game and in Friday’s performance.
Against NJ Scholars, Reid finished with 10 points, four rebounds and a pair of assists. He also was on the verge of fouling out with four personal fouls — hence his aforementioned comments on battling through officiating woes.
But in Friday’s win, Reid put on a show finishing with a team-high 23 points on 10-of-13 shooting from the field. He also snagged 13 rebounds and recorded three assists.
During one stretch of the first quarter, Reid had a hand in nine straight points to help his team erase a short-lived Team Durant lead. One basket came through a sweet dish from Reid to a teammate in the paint. Then, Reid himself converted an “And-1” on a layup, drained a three-pointer after pump-faking a defender out of his way, and then tossed a nifty no-look dime that set up a score to put Team Thad up 18-13.
His squad never looked back.
And while his array of head-turning passes and dunks got the Peach Jam crowd hype, the large contingent of college coaches watching were, no doubt, more impressed by his intangibles. At least that’s how it was for Grovetown boys basketball coach Darren Douglas.
“This will be my eighth year as a coach, and we’ve put plenty of kids into college, but we just haven’t had one that’s as special as Derrion,” Douglas said. “And I think what it is for me is it helps for the ones coming behind him, because he’s an example — 5:30 a.m. workouts, he never misses. He’s a 3.8 (GPA) student. He’s a kid that, when a fight happens in the hallway at school, he’s not pulling out a phone. He’s pushing guys away from each other to break it up. It’s his character and the intangibles that has him here.”
Intangibles like when, late in the fourth quarter after a Team Durant score, Team Thad point guard Labaron Philon received the inbounds pass and looked as if he were ready to sprint up court, full speed ahead to try and generate an answer.
But, with a seven-point lead with less than two minutes in regulation, Reid understood the onus wasn’t on his team to have to score urgently. So,he calmed the action by raising his hands toward Philon and saying, “Yo.”
That seemingly small example of basketball IQ is what Douglas says sets Reid apart from many other of the nation’s most gifted players.
“Every time you talk to him, he’s watching basketball, and he’s noticing things and trying to find new things to make him better,” Douglas said. “And that’s major, with the way people’s attention spans are now. We can be watching a game, and he’ll say, ‘Man, did you see this?’ And it’ll be something nobody else would notice. Not the dunks. Not the jump shots. Not the behind-the-back stuff.”
Douglas says such attention to detail comes from Reid’s obsession with watching film — something Reid does with such voracity that it’s birthed a bit of friendly film watching competition between player and coach.
“Last year, I would check hudl.com to see who all is watching film, and it’d be like, Wednesday, and he’d already have 12 hours in for the week,” Douglas said. “He watches it as much as I do. Almost to the point where I’m like, ‘Let me step my film-watching game up.’ But he’s always been like that. Some kids, it’s like pulling teeth to get them to watch film. With him, he does it on his own.”
Not only that, Douglas gets joy from watching Reid perform on big stages like the Peach Jam because it shows him how what he teaches in his Grovetown program translates to success even among the nation’s elite.
“You can see so much of our program in him,” he said. “The way he rotates on defense. The way he plays off a two. Every kid doesn’t play off two, and they’re great, great kids. But that’s a college skill we teach from sixth grade on, and he does it fluently. So, it’s cool to see him do it on this level. It’s like a little bit of validation for me as a coach, but for the most part, it just makes me proud to see him go.”
It’s a big reason why Reid’s scholarship offers list looks like it does. It’s a who’s who of college basketball blue bloods such as Kansas, Indiana, Tennessee, along with programs like Alabama, Auburn, Creighton and virtually every Division I college in Georgia vying for his services.
This time last year, during Reid’s first Peach Jam experience, many of those schools were already on his trail. But as the spotlight on his play has increased along with his role on both his AAU squads and his Grovetown team, Reid’s more concerned with getting better than garnering more attention.
“Everything is a bigger role for me,” Reid said. “Coming here with Team Thad, it was just a connection, just like family, and it’s like I’ve known those guys my whole life. They told me what they were building and how I could help them contribute, and that was that. Of course, it’s definitely been a bigger role for me than what I played last year, but it’s been helpful for me as a leader.”
It’ll pay off once the high school season starts and Reid, who came into the Peach Jam averaging 17.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and two assists for Team Thad in the Nike EYBL circuit, will see an increased role with a Warriors bunch looking to get back to state championship form two seasons ago.
“Last year, I would say to our guys all the time, ’There ain’t no Michael Jackson in the Jackson 5. We’re just the Jackson 5,’” Douglas said. “But now, we probably do have a Michael Jackson in the Jackson 5 with Derrion. But we also tell these guys that along with the rights of everything that comes with playing at this level, you also have responsibilities. And what I’m looking for with Derrion is just him continuing to grow.
“It ain’t about winning games. It’s to continue to grow yourself as a young man, set yourself up on a good platform to go to the next level and succeed and just keep being who you are.”
It’s Reid’s exact, succinct formula for what he hopes to be a banner senior season at Grovetown.
“I’m just working on getting bigger, getting stronger and getting better at continuing to take on a leadership spot on our team,” he said. “I just gotta keep going and stay hungry. That’s the goal.”
