The Prospect: D.J. Jeffries, family embrace pressure of being a top recruit

The Commercial Appeal was granted access to Team Penny, the Memphis-based grassroots basketball program started by former NBA All-Star and Memphis basketball legend Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway in 2012. Over the past four months, reporter Mark Giannotto attended practices and games to examine some of the region’s players who have helped turn the program into a national juggernaut.

The Commercial Appeal will have stories on four of those players and then take readers behind the scenes of Team Penny's experience at Nike's Peach Jam, which is the biggest grassroots basketball event of the year.

Monday — The Pupil: Alex Lomax, 'the face of Team Penny'
Tuesday — The Prospect: D.J. Jeffries and the pressure of being a top recruit
Wednesday — The Potential: Malcolm Dandridge tries to fulfill his promise
Thursday — The Prince: Jayden Hardaway looks to create his own basketball identity 
Friday — The Peach Jam: Can Team Penny's talent trump teamwork? 

Go to commercialappeal.com for all parts of the series, including photo galleries, videos and a podcast. And join writer Mark Giannotto on The Geoff Calkins Show on ESPN 92.9-FM each day this week during the 9 a.m. hour as he discusses the series.

OLIVE BRANCH, Miss. — It’s Jan. 13 and sophomore D.J. Jeffries is soaring through the air for an alley-oop and unleashing no-look passes. He is waving his arms to rile up the hometown crowd at Olive Branch High School. On the sideline, 5-foot-9 Corey Jeffries is telling a visitor he never expected to be the father of the Memphis area’s top basketball recruit.

As a 4-year-old, D.J. Jeffries told his parents he wanted to play in the NBA, and Corey and his wife, Shatonya, laughed at his gumption. As a third-grader, D.J. went to a local YMCA with an uncle to learn the basics of the game. As a sixth-grader, he went to Cordova Middle School to be on its basketball team and “you could see it,” Corey said. “We were like, ‘Man, he can play.’

By the seventh grade, D.J. had grown to 6-foot-3 and developed into a perimeter threat despite towering over the other boys his age. A year later, he dunked regularly and joined Dedric, K.J. and Chandler Lawson – his cousins – on the national recruiting radar.

And now, just a few months after Kentucky coach John Calipari came to Olive Branch to evaluate his son, Corey Jeffries was ready to reveal the latest development in this five-star prospect’s ascent.

“He’s going to play with Team Penny this summer,” Corey Jeffries said. “You can’t get a better coach than an NBA legend, a guy that’s been there, done it. It’s kind of hard to turn that down.”

D.J. Jeffries, a highly touted 6-foot-7 wing in the class of 2019, immediately became one of Team Penny's top prospects on Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League this year.

But his decision to join the organization only added to the pressure of being anointed one of the area’s next basketball stars because opinions on former NBA All-Star and Memphis native Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway’s involvement in the youth basketball scene can be polarizing.  

“If you’re not with us, you don’t like us,” said LaMarcus Golden, Hardaway’s cousin and Team Penny co-founder. “We know that. It’s a sign of respect.”

With colleges lining up to secure his commitment, D.J. Jeffries was thrust right into the middle of this conflict.

“What I was thinking is how Penny can teach me a lot,” he said. “Make it easier for myself instead of making it hard.”

With us or with them

It’s May 14, and D.J. Jeffries noticed R.J. Barrett crouching into a defensive stance. Jeffries immediately waved off the pick. Here was the showdown he had been anticipating for years.

In an instant, he dribbled the ball through his legs, crossed back and swished a 3-pointer over the outstretched arm of Barrett, a Canadian considered to be the top rising junior in North America. Jeffries clapped his hands five times backpedaling down court.

The next possession, he got the ball in the post with Barrett on his back. A spin move set up a one-legged fadeaway jumper, and Jeffries smiled as the shot sailed through the net. A few moments later, he blocked Barrett’s shot and the contingent of family members wearing “Team DJ” shirts in the Cartersville, Ga., crowd roared their approval.

Hardaway, subdued and detached from the action wearing white earbuds connected to his cellphone, stood up from his spot in the bleachers for the first time. He took several steps toward the court and looked wide-eyed at Team Penny EYBL coach Todd Day.

This was what he had been waiting to see.

“D.J. understands what he wants in life,” Hardaway said a few weeks later. “He wants to be great, and he’s soaking up all the knowledge that he can get. Some kids just use Team Penny as a platform to get their name up. Some kids use it to try to brainstorm me to learn as much as they can and put it into their games. D.J. is one of those kids that’s trying to brainstorm.”

Jeffries elected to leave Under Armour-sponsored Team Thad and join Nike-sponsored Team Penny this offseason because his family saw it as the best route to fulfill his dreams of becoming a one-and-done NBA draft pick like his basketball idol Kevin Durant. But the move also brought to light the tension that teenage basketball prospects in Memphis inspire among adults.

Although Team Thad produced plenty of high-end Division I talent in recent years, Corey Jeffries determined most of the top local recruits in the class of 2019 played for Hardaway. It was “a no brainer” for D.J. to follow suit.

He said as much to Team Thad’s coaches upon informing them D.J. would be switching programs. It can be awkward, Corey Jeffries noted, because he’s still friends with many of the parents associated with Team Thad but no longer on speaking terms with D.J.’s former coaches.

It only strengthened the belief that Hardaway's achievements in youth basketball have been the result of an advantage in resources and often come at the expense of the rest of the city's teams.

“There’s a divide” between Team Penny and the rest of the Memphis grassroots basketball organizations, according to one rival coach granted anonymity to speak freely on the subject. “You’re either with us or you’re with them.”

“It’s a rivalry because it’s a battle for the best players in the area,” Jeffries said. “I don’t want D.J. to be at his last summer and then he can’t even showcase his talent because he doesn’t have the talent around him and he’s getting doubled every time he touches the ball.”

When Team Penny practices began this spring, Corey Jeffries worried about the rumors he previously heard from afar. That Hardaway’s success in youth basketball was the result of accumulating talent. Or that Team Penny would take care of its homegrown players before an import like his son. How would D.J. fit in?

But he quickly decided those fears weren’t justified.

“To be honest, (Hardaway) showed a little favoritism to D.J. here and now,” Corey Jeffries said.

To D.J., it's a sign that Hardaway sees a little of himself in his new star. The adjustment to Team Penny wasn't completely smooth, however.

Jeffries showed flashes of the ballyhooed prospect he had been made out to be early on, including a 19-point showing in front of college coaches in Hampton, Va. But there were just as many moments when he seemed like a 17-year-old still finding his way.  

Jeffries noted after an EYBL event outside Indianapolis in late April that the speed and physicality surprised him. Then he faced off with one of the few 2019 prospects ranked ahead of him, and everything changed.

Barrett finished with 30 points, but Jeffries had 25 points and Team Penny won the game by a wide margin. Two weeks later, Jeffries scored 20 points again and set new highs for assists and rebounds to close out EYBL regular-season play.

His swagger was back.

“That game was different,” Jeffries said. “I wanted to prove to everybody I’m better than him.”

'He was born for it'

It’s June 15, and Jeffries sounds worried over the phone in Charlottesville, Va. This is the first day NCAA rules permit college basketball coaches to contact 2019 recruits. Jeffries fielded many inquiries from his dorm room at the NBPA Top 100 camp.

The first came from Ohio State, and he got excited because he didn’t even know the Buckeyes were interested. Then Ole Miss, Memphis, Mississippi State, Florida, LSU, Wake Forest, Iowa State and Kansas followed suit.  

But he is concerned that Kentucky hasn’t reached out yet. Jeffries grew up a Memphis fan and would love to play for Calipari.

“Don’t panic,” his father assured him. “It’s just the initial date.”

Over time, the Jeffries family watched as players ranked higher than D.J. in middle school fell off the recruiting map and others emerged. Jeffries, meanwhile, debuted at No. 7 in the country ahead of his eighth grade year, and it’s the same ranking he held from every major recruiting service entering college basketball's live evaluation period in July.

More than the pursuit of a specific college scholarship or the politics of grassroots basketball, this is what drives him at the moment. Status means something to D.J. Jeffries.

“Every day you’ve got different kids coming for your spot all the time and trying to be better than you,” Jeffries said. “When you get your first offer, you know people are watching.”

Both Corey and D.J. still remember the first one, from Southeast Missouri State. Corey never expected it to come so quickly. He laughs about the conference call, when the scholarship was officially offered.

Father and son looked at each other, not sure how to answer questions being doled out by an assistant coach.  

“Everybody was sweating,” Corey Jeffries said. “It was stressful, man. We panicked.”

It’s funny, in retrospect, because D.J. Jeffries is still more than a year away from even picking a college. Friends and family inject their opinion, telling the Jeffries what school they should choose as the scholarship offers roll in.

But they’re intent on enjoying all this attention, not wanting to rush the process. Shatonya insists that "the game stay fun" for D.J. 

So Corey Jeffries was nervous when June rolled around, wondering how his soft-spoken son would handle all the phone calls from college coaches. Nothing about this process, though, seems to have bothered D.J. yet.

This is what he always wanted, and now his family is ready for that reality, too.  

“I kind of think he was born for it,” Corey Jeffries said.