T
o find the last time the world at large was this unaware of what Brandon Ingram was ready to bring to the basketball court, you’d probably have to go all the way back to the summer before he entered 10th grade in Kinston, North Carolina. At the time, Ingram was well-known locally and pegged as the next big thing from the small, semi-rural town of 21,000 about four hours east of Charlotte. In basketball circles, Kinston is a brand, standing for toughness, resilience and passion for the game. It’s the best explanation for why the speck in the middle of nowhere has somehow produced six NBA players: former Celtic Cedric Maxwell, Charles Shackleford, Mitchell Wiggins (father of Andrew), Jerry Stackhouse, Reggie Bullock and Ingram. Dubbed ‘Basketball Heaven’, Kinston was built on tobacco and textile production and — in sports terms at least — has benefitted from the plethora of gyms and parks that were built during better times, before those industries shrunk or moved overseas, leaving elevated rates of unemployment, child poverty and violent crime in their wake.
Ingram’s father, Donald, a former police officer, ran one of Kinston’s 10 rec centres, giving his son unlimited gym-time to hone his skills. His older brother, Bo, was himself a standout on the court, meaning Ingram was never even the best player in his family growing up. And then there was the local tradition where up-and-coming talents were invited to play men’s league and open gym with the adults in a rough-and-tumble style that was not for the meek.
