The basketball lineage It invites expectation and a certain dose of nostalgia about those new players who land in the NBA under the shelter of a surname that has been synonymous with success in the past. Immediately, everyone is busy looking for similarities and jumping to conclusions about what to expect and how much the new kid will resemble his immediate predecessor.
As a player who won three championship rings with Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls and added two more alongside Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, Ron Harper emerges as a name that league fans will hardly forget.
His offspring, Harper Jr., did not experience these successes first-hand as he was only fourteen months old when Ron Sr. hung up his shoes in 2001 after completing his ring poker game. The basketball bug stayed with him for several more years, which led to being part of Flip Saunders’ coaching staff in Detroit between 2005 and 2007.
Thus, Harper Jr.’s sports education fell on his mother, also hardened in the vast tasks of basketball. Maria Harper played NCAA Division I college basketball in New Orleans. She subsequently served as a trainer in DePaul Catholic High School and founded his own AUU program, Ring City, which would house little Ron.
“My mother took on the role of teaching me to play basketball,” said Harper Jr. in a recent interview for the media. The Athletic. “My father embraced that decision. Maybe he was in the game long enough and just wanted to step back and see how he developed me. He knew that he was in good hands with my mother.”
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