Jaden Hardy passionate about basketball, mentorship

Jaden Hardy was probably destined to make it to the NBA. His brother was a star basketball player, and his dad always worked basketball camps.

“Jaden had a basketball a couple of weeks after he was born,” his father, Ramsay Hardy, told Mavs.com. “And he was dribbling good when he was two years old.”

Today, Jaden Hardy is “dribbling good” as a rookie guard with the Dallas Mavericks. And the early years growing up in Michigan and attending basketball camps hosted by athletes with close ties to the state of Michigan has served him well.

As a youngster, Hardy attended basketball camps hosted by Richard “Rip” Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace, Greg Kelser, Lindsey Hunter and former Mavs guard Trey Burke.

“Jaden mostly went to every camp inside of Michigan that pro players put on,” Ramsay Hardy said. “He’s been in camp every summer all the way up until he went to high school.”

So, when the Mavs executed a draft day trade this past summer to acquire Hardy’s drafts rights from the Sacramento Kings, one of the first things Hardy did when he got to Dallas was put on a free basketball camp for kids. The 6-3, 198-pound guard remembers where he came from and wanted to pass on his experiences to those who are basketball followers.

“The reason why I wanted to do a camp is I wanted to give back to the community and give back to these kids,” Jaden Hardy said. “I used to go to basketball camps, and for me I feel like it’s very important for me to do the same thing.

“I wanted to give these kids a chance to talk to me and give them advice, and I wanted to teach them the basic fundamentals of basketball.”

It was something Hardy — who has an engaging smile and personality — always saw himself doing one day.

“I used to look up to those pro basketball guys, and I said that’s what I wanted to do,” he said. “Listening to them and hearing what they told me when I was younger, I took it and ran with it.

“That’s what helped me get to where I am today.”

Lawrence Mann, who owns Plano-based Top Achievers, helped Jaden Hardy get the place to hold his camp. Mann grew up in Detroit not too far from Hardy’s family, and has a strong relationship with his family.

“I was the older guy on the block and they would always see me walking down the street, and I never got in trouble,” Mann said. “I would go to school and I had my briefcase and I played sports, and I was just a role model for a lot of the guys in the neighborhood.

“Ramsay and his brother, Ray, would always just watch me. You can read a person without getting a lot of information from them face-to-face. They saw the way I was just a good dude. They saw our family being an athletic family and they just observed us and watched us for many years.”

A close bond between Ramsay Hardy and Mann was soon formed. A close bond that has blossomed through the years.

“They started getting into sports themselves, and they knew that we had moved to Dallas, and they would always come to Dallas to say hi to us and go to dinner and hang out with us,” Mann said. “So we kept that relationship over the last 10-15 years.

“When you have a homeboy in the community and you’re in that town you want to call that homeboy up. So, Ramsay saw that I was engaged with Top Achievers, he saw that I had my own business, and he was like, ‘Dang, how did you get all that coming from a hood?’ So when his boys became high profile athletes, he wanted me to mentor him to help raise his sons, and that’s how we came so connected.”

Ramsay’s older son, Amauri, played this past July on the Cleveland Cavaliers’ summer league team and is currently playing for the G League’s Texas Legends. Meanwhile, Hardy was one of the top players in the country as a high school senior in 2020-21, and last year played for the G League’s Ignite.

Jaden Hardy averaged 17.7 points for the Ignite, and was projected to be a first-round draft pick. Instead, he unexpectedly slipped to the second round as the 37^th overall pick.

“I went down to Las Vegas and observed his first game with the Ignite, and we went back to his house after the game and I just watched the way Jaden interacted with the people,” Mann said. “There was no swearing, there wasn’t a bunch of drinking, it wasn’t about girls. It was just clean family fun.

“No. 1, Jaden is grounded. No. 2, he’s a hard worker. And by him being slotted to be a lottery pick and that didn’t happen, he’s even focused to prove to the world that he can go and he should have been among the top picks. He’s so happy that the Mavericks picked him up and he’s willing to do whatever he can to help them to go over the hump and win.”

Hardy has mostly spent this season playing and averaging 30 points for the Legends. But he’s had few opportunities with the Mavs.

Hardy’s most memorable outing with the Mavs came on Dec. 5 against Phoenix when he scored 10 points in just two minutes on 4-of-5 shots. In other words, calculated over the course of a 48-minute game, Hardy was on pace to score a whopping 240 points.

Then again, Hardy is the type of player who is a volume shooter and a bucket-getter. But with so many players in front of him, it’s difficult for him to gain any meaningful minutes in the Mavs’ rotation.

For now, Hardy just has to simply exercise some patience and wait for the day when he gets to rub shoulders alongside Luka Doncic in a game for an extended period of time.

“It’s going to be super fun playing alongside Luka and just being able to learn from him,” Hardy said. “He’s a future hall of famer.

“So being able to pick his brain, and now that I’m actually teammates of him, it’s going to be fun.”

In the meantime, Hardy and his family are enjoying their time in Dallas.

“That’s a blessing to be drafted into the NBA, and then come to a wonderful city like Dallas,” Ramsay Hardy said. “It’s a perfect match. You couldn’t ask for a better city and a better place to be.

“I think it’s a blessing to come to a new community and meet new people and meet new faces, and for my sons and I to be an impact on kid’s lives. A lot of kids and a lot of people don’t get to meet NBA players. I think that’ll be good for the community and for the kids to see somebody they can actually touch and talk to and even have as a mentor. I know everybody in life needs somebody that they look up to and be able to talk to. That’s one of the reasons why we did a camp not only for athletics, but for mentorship, too.”

And basketball AND mentorship is right up Mann’s alley. Even Tim Hardaway Jr. played in the Top Achievers’ program in 2001-’02 as a nine- and 10-year old when his dad, Tim Hardaway Jr., was playing for the Mavs.

“I asked Jaden, what do you want to accomplish while you’re here, because you can’t just come and play ball,” Mann said. “You’ve got to get involved, because that’s what we do.

“Jaden is a humble kid and his passion is basketball and mentorship. We want to continue that and set him up to continue that legacy. We want to have an annual basketball camp and we want to have a mentorship program as well.”

In other word, Hardy, 20, is right at home when he’s showing and telling kids about the facts of life and about the aspects of playing basketball.

“It’s real fun just being able to connect with the kids,” he said. “It kind of reminds me when I was younger.

“I used to be running around with a bunch of energy and doing everything.”

Meanwhile, Ramsay Hardy lives for the day when he can come to a Mavs’ game and watch his son put on a show and entertain the masses. He wholeheartedly believes that day will come.

“You always want to shoot for the stars,” Ramsay Hardy said. “The sky’s the limit for Jaden.

“As long as he keeps putting in the work, as long as the coaches have the confidence in him to let him play and do his thing, he has the potential to be an All-Star one day.”

Twitter: @DwainPrice