You think E. St. Louis is any harder than the hoods most our guys grew up in? Unfortunately, most these kids have the cards stacked against them from jump street, but life is how you respond to adversity. Not criticizing JT4, but also not going to pretend that his circumstances are somehow wildly different than a lot of the other dudes in our program coming out of overtown, carol city, opa locka, etc. who have chosen to try to make the best of their situation, regardless of the circumstances they were dealt. He has already likely overcome the most difficult odds to get to this point, but where is he right now, at the end of the day, the kid is at an inflection point whether he buckles down and balls out in the league with the talent he has, or flames out and returns to the hood. If the latter, still will not criticize him for not beating the odds against him, but at this point it’s largely a function of the decisions he makes from here on out, like so many of these kids choose to do coming out of similar situations at UM, and generally across the country.
Will be rooting for him.
