Jabari Ali Parker will play basketball for the Bucks soon, you may have heard.
Here are 10 things you may or may not know about the new Duke of Milwaukee. (Sorry, one thing he seems not to have is a nickname, which is fine. Jabari works.)
Like Father, Like Sonny
Sonny Parker, father of Jabari, played in the NBA for the Warriors from 1976 to 1982. He has a basketball-reference.com page and everything. That is not all. As basketball-reference aficionados know, each player has “Similarity Scores” listed on their profile that attempt to compare players whose careers are similar in terms of quality and shape. Two of the top four players on Sonny Parker’s similarity player score list? Drew Gooden and Ersan Ilyasova.
Roses
Jabari played high school hoops at the same school as Derrick Rose in Chicago, at Simeon. Here is the twist. Parker, who is six years younger than Rose, actually scrimmaged with Rose once upon a time… when Parker was in fifth grade and when Rose was busy winning state titles. More recently, Rose expressed his support of Parker like so: "I’m happy for him now, just seeing him… He was a chubby, fat little kid playing with us when I was in high school, and now he’s potentially going to be the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft." (Yeah. Also: Simeon coach Robert Smith, who coached Parker and Rose, declared Parker the best player he has ever coached.) Central Division fun starts in… fourth months.
Write Decision
Just a few short months ago, there was some debate as to whether Parker would declare for the draft at all. His final game at Duke was a rough one on personal and team levels, an upset second-round loss to Mercer in the NCAA tournament. Thankfully for us, he officially entered the draft via an articulate first-person letter in Sports Illustrated.
Covered
Speaking of Sports Illustrated, the magazine gave him the cover and called him “The Best High School Basketball Player Since LeBron James” all the way back in… 2012.
#12
Clairvoyant
Advanced
Parker ranked among the top 10 in the nation among players from major conferences with a 28.7 PER. While the stat is not nearly as educational in college as the pros due to massive variation in strength of schedules, it is a nice reference point to Parker’s offensive efficiency.
Bright Lights
John Hammond described Parker as “engaging” and “bright” when addressing the media at the team’s training center right after the Bucks made the selection. He is probably supposed to say things like that, but it is also true. Parker graduated high school with a 3.7 GPA and then made the All-ACC Academic Team, which means he maintained a 3.0 cumulative GPA in his academic career.
Air
Leaps and Bounds
Everyone lauds Parker for his ability to score, and that is a good thing for everyone to do. But he led the ACC in a very different category, and people don’t talk nearly as often about that part of his game. Defense is not yet his strong suit, but Parker averaged 8.7 rebounds per game to lead the league, and if you consider defensive rebounding as part of defense, then he has something to work with here.