A special bond between mother and son based on basketball

Jaden and Niele Ivey will attend a Grizzlies game in the 2021-22 season.

Jaden Ivey just finished his rookie season and showed the importance of an all star one day. There was the ability to shoot and finish, tight control of the floor, variable speed and change of direction, and a desire to compete. The Detroit Pistons, fingers crossed, doubt they have him at point guard for the next decade.

While it was strong, it wasn’t his own family’s most amazing or important rookie season. No, Jaden couldn’t have answered that unless he broke into the league and defied all biological odds and played his entire rookie season carrying a child, not in his right arms. That would make him not just Rookie of the Year, but Rookie of the Year.

So to speak, right around this time 22 years ago, Niele Ivey had a child and a secret. She was more than a month pregnant at the age of 23, uncertain about the future, and these feelings doubled. Not only did she make news midway through her rookie season with the Indiana Fever in this ambitious WNBA league, she also had to proceed, shall we say, very carefully and quietly.

It was a dream come true to be deployed, and later when I found out I was pregnant, it was a challenge as a young mother to navigate,” she said. I just had a lot of worries and anxiety about it, not knowing what it would mean for my career, if I would be able to come back, all that.

Jaden Ivey’s photo is prominently displayed in Niele Ivey’s closet in 2002.

So part of the challenge was being able to perform while pregnant. It was a secret I didn’t tell my coaches because I wanted to finish the season. Scared and nervous, I carried all this through the summer.

It was only the second year of the Fever series where the players were new to each other, so what better way to develop and identify friendships than to see if you can trust them? In that sense, profession didn’t matter. Whether they are lawyers, beauticians, doctors or teachers, when women can come together and discuss a topic unique to them, the bond is immediate.

From Rita Williams to Alicia Thompson, Stephanie McCarty and teams named savior, the mighty Tamika Catchings, picked 16 spots ahead of Ivey the Fever, became extended family to someone about to start her own.

I was excited for him, Catchings said, and he already knew he could trust us as teammates.

Ivey pushed forward. That WNBA season was 32 games, from June to mid-August, a boon for a player on the eight-month clock. He was a smart 5-foot-7 point guard with a sweet 3-pointer that led Notre Dame to the national championship that spring and was an All-American selection. Ivey finished second on the Fever in assists as a reliable rotation player, but his most impressive contribution? He played in all 32 games.

No maternity leave.

Because true hoopers, regardless of gender, have such a strong desire to play, and in hindsight, it worked out just as the basketball gods intended. Considering the circumstances, the son she gave birth to the next spring had to drop a bib and on the field.

“He was on the field his whole life, literally, even before I gave birth,” Niele Ivey said. To become a professional basketball player? I couldn’t have imagined it, but it sounds like it was meant to be.

It takes a basketball village

Tamika Catchings holds Jaden Ivey’s Fever rehearsals in 2002.

In Jaden Ivey’s rookie year, 28 NBA players also had fathers playing at the highest level, and two others had mothers who did the same: Pam’s son JaVale McGee, who played him professionally overseas just before the WNBA launched. in 1997; and Jaden, Niele’s son (pronounced polvi-elle).

She raised him as a single mother, which doesn’t mean she made it on her own.

If I wasn’t holding her, Tamika Catchings was holding her, Niele says. He was in training and was held by the manager. He was with me everywhere. I was able to travel with him when he was a baby and my teammates and I were always together. He had many aunts. She was raised by a village of strong women.

Here’s the difference between Jaden and his fellow NBA players: His early basketball idols were women. They talked to him constantly, praised him and kept him alert.

Jaden was our ‘baby,’ so he was as much a part of our team as he was,” Catchings said.

And that arrangement continued after her mother left the WNBA and returned as an assistant at Notre Dame in 2007. She was simply moved from Catchings to Skylar Diggins-Smith. It was a surreal early basketball experience for a young boy. It wasn’t until years later that he realized it, but he always appreciated it.

“If you’re a basketball fan and you love the game, you look up to the men’s and women’s game,” he said. It is so. I grew up in that environment and looked up to those players, strong black women playing the game. It was a pleasure to be in their presence, to get their love for the game.

Niele Ivey’s WNBA teammates and the Notre Dame varsity players she coaches serve as Jaden’s second floor. He was the first, and as a player and then a coach, his impact on basketball was understandably the strongest.

Niele Ivey practices Jaden at Fever in 2002.

As a result, NBA player Jaden Ivey is polished and in some ways better prepared for the league and its lifestyle than most rookies.

I learn about the game around him, every day, I go to the gym, how to work, how to study, learned all this from him, he said.

But it went deeper than basketball because parenting is always more. This was a mother and son on the journey of life together, helping each other along the way.

It was Jaden and I, he was with me at work and I support him in all his activities, school and sports, he said. Two peas in a pod, always together. They were kind of attached in that way, which is such a beautiful thing. A strong bond. She was truly a wonderful child and I was always so proud and blessed to be her mother. He was definitely my heart. We grew up together, he was a young child and I was a young mother.

Jadens limbs flow with athletic genes. His grandfather, James Hunter, was a star for the Detroit Lions in the late 1970s and had 27 career interceptions. His father, Javin Hunter, was a receiver at Notre Dame (where he met Niele) and was drafted into the NFL, where he played briefly.

Jaden tried football at his father’s suggestion, split his time with basketball, and didn’t choose another until he got to high school.

When I first got him to the gym, it was, let’s work on your layups, his mom and first coach said. It took a while for him to respect what I said. I think it was because I was a mom, and the kids go, “Oh, Mom. He gave me a hard time at first. Then he started getting serious about the game when he was 10 or 11, and that’s when I thought he turned a corner. All of a sudden it was, “Mom , can you help me with this?” Can I come to the gym with you while you work out the girls? I said wow, she’s really serious.

When Jaden Ivey was in high school, Niele was an assistant coach with Notre Dame and the Memphis Grizzlies.

Jaden’s talent skyrocketed in high school and rose up the recruiting list. Meanwhile, his mother’s basketball career took an unexpected and significant turn: she was offered an assistant coaching job with the Memphis Grizzlies just before Jadens seniority. He said the decision to accept it was a leap of faith that was not made without deep thought because Jaden stayed behind and attended a prep school in Indiana. For the first time, mother and son separated.

Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins said Niele was a natural, praising her hoop experience and, most importantly, her ability to connect with players, meaning for the first time in her career, male players.

He particularly approached Ja Morant – a rookie at the time – and Jaren Jackson Jr.

He was great with his scouting reports, knew his Xs and Os, and I knew right away he was going to be a head coach soon enough,” Jackson said. He was ready for this, built for this.

Niele Ivey coaches then-Grizzlies forward Jae Crowder in 2019.

That opportunity came quickly. Ivey’s taste of the NBA lasted one season, as in 2020 he replaced longtime Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw, who retired. And in his three years at Iveys so far, Notre Dame has reached the Sweet 16 twice.

Niele Ivey paid just as much attention to the Purdue games; that’s where Jaden went to college. And like his mother in Memphis, his stay was a brief two years on campus before entering the 2022 NBA Draft, selected fifth overall by the Pistons.

It was surreal because I was looking at nature for so many years, he said. When I was there last summer, seeing him shake the commissioners hand, hearing his name being called, I thought I was going to break down and cry, but my feelings quickly changed to love and gratitude.

Still pushing each other

Niele Ivey and Notre Dame celebrate the final seconds of the 2022 victory.

To answer everyone’s obvious question: Yes, mom is still giving basketball advice to a son who was the third-leading rookie scorer last season at 16.3 points per game.

He watches every game and gives me things that can help me improve, Jaden said. That’s why we have that special bond. Its destiny is to get a coach for mom. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he gives me space and lets me grow, but I always ask him things I need to improve on. He sees the game, knows the game, coaches at the highest level.

However, Niele Ivey suspects that her son’s basketball maturity from opening night to Game No. 82 was more her own.

“I thought he really adjusted to the rigor of the schedule, the expectations and the pressure,” he said. His progress was amazing to watch. I come from the coach’s point of view, but also from the parents’ point of view. I try to be positive and encouraging. When he was younger I was always hanging on the edge of my seat. I’m glad I’ve matured since then and can relax and enjoy myself a bit more now that he’s a pro.

The influence that mother and son have had on each other’s destiny is evident. Niele Ivey juggled motherhood, playing and coaching and rose to the challenge to land one of college basketball’s top jobs. Jaden Ivey is already a key part of the Pistons’ rebuilding plan, a 6-foot-4 combo guard who demanded and earned respect among his peers in a short period of time.

Two-year-old Jaden Ivey shoots a basket alongside his mother in 2004.

Tamika Catchings said: It’s pretty amazing to look back on little Jaden and see where he is now. One thing that has always been so cool about his journey is how much he studied the game and worked so hard. Jaden was always in the gym. He has thought about it for a long time.

I’m proud of Niele and how he handled his journey as a professional basketball player early on to where he is today. It was amazing to see how she focused on herself and her career above all else on her child.

Yes, the difference between Niele Ivey and other moms of NBA players is the extent to which she was hands-on. How many can say they taught their son the benefits of left-handed and right-handed dribbling, sold him on pump fakes, taught him the toughness required to defend, and showed him proper shooting form? All this, and how to treat the women who surround him throughout his life?

This Mother’s Day, his first as an NBA player, gives Jaden Ivey plenty to think about.

“This is why I can live my life and play the game I love,” he said. I found it because of him.

Jaden and Niele Ivey pose for a photo in 2004.

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Shaun Powell has been playing in the NBA for over 25 years. You can send him an emailhere, you can find his archive hereand follow himTwitter.

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