Many of the best New England prospects over the years have reached the highest levels of professional basketball, with several still making their mark in the NBA right now.
But they never forgot where they came from.
No matter how far their careers take them, their purest and fondest memories in the sport came before they were known, before they were drafted and before they even sniffed a Division 1 offer. They came in the gyms around New England that defined their formative years and created a foundation for where they are today.
For our August magazine, we talked to a handful of active NBA pros about their best pieces of advice for today’s high school prospects. Here’s the second part of our conversations with Georges Niang, Duncan Robinson, Pat Connaughton and Terance Mann about their favorite memories playing high school and grassroots basketball in New England.
Georges Niang will never forget what Leo Papile did for him. One summer, when he didn’t have the spring and summer he was hoping with BABC, the longtime director and coach invested in his young recruit. He saw the potential and backed it up with his actions.
All of that August, Niang took a train from his hometown in Methuen, Mass., to North Station in Boston. Papile would pick him up and take him to Waltham for workouts.
“It wasn't on the court stuff,” Niang recalled. “It was just like lifting. And for someone to pour into someone who was, I was like 15 years old and I wasn't a heralded NBA player, but he wanted to pour into me so that I could get the best out of myself. And he wanted nothing in return.”
That was a common experience for Niang, who remembers the days Papile would pack in 10 players into his Chevy Tahoe for various tournaments around the country.
Papile is entering his 50th season as the director of BABC, and Niang stressed the way he’s gone about his business is unique in an era when handlers and agents have taken over the market.
“He's giving back because he loves the game and he wants to see kids from this area do great,” said Niang, who signed with the Golden State Warriors this summer. “He's never asked for anything, never asked me to come speak, never asked me for any money or anything like that. He just wanted to see the best out of me and he's done that for so many Boston kids and New England kids for so long. It's just a rarity to see that.”
Before he became a Division 1 basketball prospect, and before he blew up on the national radar with the Middlesex Magic, Pat Connaughton – an Arlington, Mass. native – was a member of Fidelity House. He remembers playing against Nerlens Noel, the No. 1 recruit in the national Class of 2012 and Everett, Mass. native, when he was with BABC. Connaughton described that team – which also featured Niang – as an “all-star team.”
Those experiences prepared Connaughton, who later focused on basketball as a 16-year-old sophomore and joined the Magic and director Michael Crotty.
“The memories were just, hey, I don't know if I'm going to be a high-major guy yet, but I know that I can compete and I can hold my own when I do get into situations playing against guys who are high-major guys,” said Connaughton, now with the Charlotte Hornets. “This program kind of gave me the best chance. I just remember the three, four games a weekend. I remember winning super regionals, the state tournament, going down to nationals together, seeing teams from the Boston area that you were competing against weekend in and weekend out during AAU season, but then seeing them in nationals, you were rooting for them.
“You wanted them to represent and show how good New England basketball was as a whole. And it was fun.”
Like Connaughton, Duncan Robinson was a member of Crotty’s Magic outfit before they became a sneaker circuit team with the Under Armour Association. They were independent then, but the lessons were just as vital on how to take his game to the next level.
“That was one of the first times that I had a coach who really believed in me, challenged me, pushed me,” said Robinson, who’s entering his second season with the Detroit Pistons. “He was one of the first people that really made me uncomfortable about how aggressive I needed to be shooting the ball, and I remember him pulling me to the side and telling me that it was selfish of me to pass up shots, right? And that me shooting and being aggressive was doing my job for the team. That was sort of a mindset shift that he helped me wrap my mind around.”
At the scholastic level, the memories are just as fond. Terance Mann was the star at Tilton, averaging 23.1 points and 7.3 rebounds per game to lead the Rams to the NEPSAC Class AA championship in 2015. Tilton went 31-5 en route to beating Vermont Academy and Mann’s BABC teammate, Bruce Brown, who remains a close friend today, in the title game.
Mann remembers silencing some naysayers that season.
“Just a dominant season,” said Mann, a member of the Brooklyn Nets. “We were all locked in. We all had one goal in mind. In the beginning of the year, they didn't think (we could win). So we dominated the whole season.”
That was Tilton coach Marcus O’Neil’s sixth NEPSAC championship. Mann remembers him setting a high standard of excellence.
“He really taught us how to be professional players,” Mann said. “I commend him for that. … They weren't into all the politics stuff of the internet and mixtapes and all that stuff. It was a grind.”
Niang, a former Tilton star, credited O’Neil and the experience at the school for teaching how to be a professional, too. He remembers having a lot of attention on him at Tilton, where he was teammates with Noel and several other highly recruited prospects. It taught him important lessons about the way he carried himself that later paid dividends when he made the NBA.
“I'll never forget, someone sent me a letter and it was like, ‘Watch your every step because everyone else is,’” Niang said. “And it just made me think about,, we had a lot of attention in prep school because it was one of the highest levels of basketball in high school and everybody was watching us. … The way you handled yourself, people were taking notes no matter where you were going.”
Connaughton, famously, stayed on the MIAA route throughout high school at St. John’s Prep, where he helped the school win its first state championship in program history in 2011. For him, it always came back to the people who helped guide him to each level of basketball. At St. John’s Prep, that was head coach Sean Connolly.
“He was young,” Connaughton said. “He was probably my age right now when I was back there and he'd play one-on-one with me after practice. He wouldn't take it easy on me. He'd coach me harder than he coached anybody else on the team and he pushed me to be really, really good.”
