Lucas: The Right Place

By Adam Lucas

ELON, N.C.—In just the second game of his college career, Nassir Little decided it was time to be selfish.

You knew this day was coming, of course. A big-name freshman with a huge national reputation who scored "only" seven points in his college debut? Of course he was going to be selfish, would have to get his.

Only…uh…Little wanted to be selfish a little differently.

"I've always thought you can't be selfish enough with rebounds," Little said after Carolina's 116-67 win over the Phoenix. "Coming into this game I told myself that to help this team I was going to get to the offensive boards. I made that my personal goal, to rebound as much as I could and everything flowed from there."

That's, well, that's a little different type of selfishness, there, Nassir.

By "everything flowed from there," the freshman meant seven rebounds. Multiple three-pointers. And post moves. And old-fashioned three-point plays. And dunks. Oh, the dunks.

Especially the first open-court one. For the sake of posterity, I feel that we need to set down on the page what it was like to be in Schar Center when Nassir Little took off from just inside the free throw line early in the second half and then rammed home a one-handed tomahawk dunk.

First, it appeared to be absolutely certain that he had taken off too early. Federico Poser—who deserves to be on your Christmas card list, because he made the whole sequence possible—had turned the ball over, and suddenly Little was way out in front of everyone else, teammates included. When he launched himself into the air, it looked like he had jumped too early. But then he kept going up.

And up.

And up.

And don't tell anybody, but it kind of looks like he could even take off from farther next time.

"Oh yeah," Little said with a grin. "I can get farther out. Or I was going to do some tricks. But I just wanted to put the first one in. I wanted to be safe."

Did you hear that? That was a "safe" dunk. There are "tricks" yet to be seen. Someone alert ESPN, if they have any free airtime remaining after salivating over others.

About that. There's been quite a bit of chatter about Little in the last three days. He heard it, because he's a regular human being under that cape that trails him when he's soaring through the air.

But somehow, at 18 years old, he has a better perspective on it than many of the adults who have talked about him in the last 72 hours.

"It comes with the territory," Little said. "There's a lot of hype around my game, so people are going to talk about it. But at the end of the day, I'm just trying to win games. If I have one point and we win, I'm happy. Winning means more to me than anything."

It is the year 2018, so it is fair to ask at this moment: how did this person turn out this way? Why does this teenager have more maturity than so many of the rest of us?

He had a conversation with his father after the opener. It went like this:

Dad: "It's one game and everyone is overreacting. The circumstances for every freshman on every team is different. You are on a senior-led team with a National Player of the Year candidate on your team. Why would anyone expect that you would come in and take every shot?"

Son, an alleged millennial: "That's exactly right, Dad."

Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Little.

You cannot make up this next sequence of events, so I will report them here exactly as they happened.

After Friday's game, the elder Little was extolling the virtues of his son playing for the Tar Heels. "People just look at his name and expect numbers," he said as the stands cleared at Elon. "They don't look at all of the nuances. He gets to just relax and play his game."

At that exact moment, the aforementioned National Player of the Year candidate, Luke Maye, walked by.

"Excuse me," Maye said. He actually said, "Excuse me." That is really what he said.

"I just wanted to tell you I thought Nas played great tonight," Maye said to Mr. Little. Then he went off to make straight A's and volunteer at the Children's Hospital and drop 20 points and help old ladies cross the street, a typical Luke Maye day. "Sorry to interrupt," he said as he walked away.

The elder Little beamed and made a, "See?" gesture with his hands. "For me, this experience is fortifying who Nassir already is. He has always been self-sufficient and independent and mentally strong. This is exposing him to people and experiences he hasn't had before, and making him better for it. It's an incredible learning opportunity."

This entire two minutes was so through-the-looking-glass that it made you want to look around for a unicorn bounding across a rainbow forest. Here is some news: there are still people like this—from Maye to Nassir Little to Harold Little, and Roy Williams seems to have a knack for collecting them—in college basketball in the year 2018. There is hope.

That doesn't mean it has always been easy. The freshman readily admits there are days at practice he is confused. He has doubts. He sees the highlights of other players and he wonders if he has somehow fallen behind, if perhaps he has peaked.

"Coach (Hubert) Davis has been so huge for me," Little says. "Sometimes I want to make my role really small. I'm a freshman and I think I'm not supposed to shoot the ball every time. Coach Davis tells me I'm better than that, and that for us to be as good as we can be, I have to be a player. Not just a freshman, but a player. He tells me that day in and day out. And there have been many days I've thought, 'If he can believe in me, I can believe in myself.' The way he sees me makes me want to see myself in a better way and make myself a better player."

Let's all realize that just because Little had 21 points and a couple fancy plays, the process isn't finished. There will be other nights that he struggles. There will be other days he has doubts. That's part of why he's here. Some outsiders are never going to understand this, but he wanted this. All of this. The good and the bad and the learning and the confusion and all the extra shots after practice and being pushed—hard—every single day.

"It's a process," Little says. "I'm fortunate to be in a program that wants to win rather than just be a showcase."

Players Mentioned

Nassir Little

Luke Maye

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