From being big man on his high school campus, Grimes making impact with Mavs

Before reaching his goal of playing in the NBA, Quentin Grimes put together a very impressive resume that will rival anybody’s.

Grimes was the first player at The Woodlands College Park High School in suburban Houston to letter and start every varsity game as a freshman. He also earned a 3.38 grade point average, and averaged 29.5 points, 8.6 rebounds, 4.9 assists, 1.8 stead and 1.5 blocks per game as a senior.

Talk about being the big man on campus.

In addition, Grimes was chosen as the All-Greater Houston Player of the Year in 2018, the Gatorade State Player of the Year, was selected as a McDonald’s All-American, and also eared Texas Mr. Basketball honors.

“It was great,” said Grimes, now a 6-4 guard with the Dallas Mavericks. “I was one of the first guys (in Houston) in a while to get the All-American honors.”

Grimes went on to play for coach Bill Self and the Kansas Jayhawks, and in his first college game he drilled six-pointers against Michigan State and scored 21 points. But Grimes obtained a waiver after one year at Kansas and transferred to Houston and was able to play immediately for Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson.

“Any time you go somewhere you’re going to have adversity, even whether it be in the NBA, college or high school,” Grimes told Mavs.com. “You’re going to have to try to go through it sometimes.

“So, I was lucky enough to go through that (at Kansas), and then go through some adversity at Houston as well to make me tough-minded and have super tough skin coming to the NBA to be ready for whatever. Going through the ups and downs really got me ready for anything thrown at me in the NBA.”

Grimes and the Cougars lost to Baylor – the Bears went on to win the NCAA title –in the 2021 Final Four semifinals.

“They had three of four guards coming off the bench all shooting 40 percent from three,” Grimes said. “They were stacked that year.

“If we’re going to lose to somebody, at least we lost to the champs. But we had a good run, for sure.”

That noteworthy run by the Cougars – coupled with Grimes’ performance – helped him become the No. 25 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft by the Los Angeles Clippers. But he was quickly traded on draft night to the New York Knicks, who later traded him to the Detroit Pistons this past Feb. 8.

The Mavs acquired Grimes from the Pistons five months ago for Tim Hardaway Jr. and three second-round draft picks. And once Grimes got accustomed to the Mavs’ system, he’s elevated his game to a higher level.

“It’s a new system and I feel like we’re all adjusting – me, Naji (Marshall) and Klay (Thompson),” Grimes said. “It just taken some time. You just got to make sure and figure out what exactly the coach wants, what does Luka (Dončić) wants, (Kyrie Irving) wants. Just playing off of great players like that takes a little bit of time.

“I feel like once we all kind of got situated, got a good feeling, a good flow, it’s kind of easy to play with guys like that. Luka makes everybody on the team better, Kai is amazing to watch, and Klay shoots it and when he lets it go it’s probably going in. We’re just trying to take a little bit of piece from all those guys’ game and make it easy for them.”

Grimes made things easier for his teammates during a three-game stretch from Nov. 27-Dec. 1. That’s when he scored 21 points against the Knicks, 24 against the Utah Jazz and a season-high 28 against the Portland Trail Blazers.

Against the Knicks, Grimes was 7-of-13 from the field, including 4-of-8 from behind the three-point line. Against the Jazz he was 9-of-16 from the floor, including 5-of-11 from downtown. And against the Blazers he was a very efficient 9-of-13 from the field, including 5-of-7 from beyond the three-point arc.

“Q has been huge for us, especially when we’ve been undermanned, and especially in that Portland game where he had 28 points on 13 shots,” Thompson said. “If we want to do what we want to do and hoist that (championship) trophy at the end, those wins are huge, especially come seeding time.

“Q’s been a great addition and he’s such an incredible shooter and two-way player that he’s going to continue to make a huge impact for us.”

Dončić believes Grimes – he averages 8.8 points in 20.6 minutes — will always have the ability to make a huge impact for the Mavs.

“He’s one of the, I would say, best catch-and-shooters in this league,” Dončić said. “We just got to use him like that more.”

Grimes, however, has also been able to prosper on the defensive end of the floor.

“He’s been really, really good for us,” coach Jason Kidd said. “You look at Q’s defense, and then also his ability to shoot the three, coming up with steals, (and he has) active hands.”

Grimes scored 14 points in just 19 minutes last Sunday against Golden State, then added 11 points this past Thursday against the Clippers. Marshall said he knew in due time Grimes would step up his game once he got used to his new surroundings.

“I remember he wasn’t playing up to the par that we all knew he could play at the beginning of the season,” Marshall said. “Just to see him turn it on is a great thing to see.

“I know how hard that can be for players at times. So just to see him shake back from that, we all knew he could be who he could be.”

Grimes, 24, has a maternal half-brother name Tyler Myers, 34, who plays for the National Hockey League’s Vancouver Canucks. Together, the two are the first pair of brothers to play in the NBA and NHL.

“It’s great, especially just helping for my development at a young age,” Grimes said. “I could pick his brain on how to be a pro, what it takes to take care of your body, and what to eat and how do you recover.

“So, I think that definitely gave me a little bit of an edge in high school to have an older brother that I could just talk to about that.”

When Grimes played for the Knicks, Vancouver would come to the Greater New York area to play the New York Rangers, New York Islanders and New Jersey Devils. That gave him ample opportunities to see Myers play in person.

“They would be there for a week, but we see them now just twice (in Dallas), so it makes it a little tougher,” Grimes said. “But it’ll be all good, because everybody can drive up (from Houston), take pictures, talk and catch up, so it’ll be fun for sure.”

As of now, several of Grimes’ family members and friends have made the four-hour drive from Houston to watch him and the Mavs play.

“I’ve got friends in Dallas, too, so it’s a lot of family and a lot of familiar faces,” Grimes said. “It definitely makes it easy for me to go out there and just have a good time with my teammates.

“I see a lot of familiar faces going to the grocery store. I bump into people from Houston, from high school, college. It’s definitely great to be around family, because it makes you feel more confident when you’re out there on the court.”

X: @DwainPrice