Ask anyone who has followed the basketball career of Justise Winslow for the moment they thought he had the chance to be something special, and each points to the same moment: the state title game in his freshman year at St. John’s School, a small, private school in Houston.
Trying to lift the school to its first basketball title in more than 30 years, Winslow — playing alongside his older brother Josh — had been spectacular, putting up 43 points and 16 rebounds. With 12 seconds left and the score tied, coach Harold Baber knew there was no one else he would rather have with the ball in his hands.
“We drew up a play, and he worked it to perfection,” Baber said. “He crosses a guy over and gets into the lane, and no one would have been bothered if he took a shot. But his brother’s guy steps up, and he finds him and Josh lays it in as the buzzer sounded.
“It was worked to perfection by a freshman. It was one of those moments … you always knew he was special, but in the biggest game of his career at that point, he goes for 43 and 16 and finishes the game exactly the way you drew it up.
“That’s when I was like, ‘Wow, this is something extraordinary.’ ”
In the Winslow household, everything was a competition. And the Winslows excelled against all comers, following in the footsteps of their father, Rickie, a member of the legendary Phi Slama Jama teams at Houston in the mid 1980s, who played alongside Hakeem Olajuwon as a freshman. He reached the 1984 national championship game before a brief stint with the Bucks and a lengthy career overseas.
For Justise, the youngest of five Winslow children, that meant having to earn everything he got, because his siblings made sure he wasn’t going to have anything handed to him.
“There’s definitely a lot of athletes in the family, so being the youngest, it was kind of cool and kind of tough,” he said. “I got picked on, beat up on by my older siblings … but it made me stronger, made me mentally tougher.
“But as an athlete, losing a lot because you’re the youngest, you’re not as big and strong and fast as your siblings, getting picked last and just trying to find a way to win and keep it competitive, I think that’s where my competitive nature comes from. Just from trying to figure out how to compete and keep up with my siblings.”
Said Rickie Winslow: “When he was a small kid, when he couldn’t get his way, he always wanted to show he could do things. He wanted to be able to do things for himself.”
Eventually, though, he did, following along in the footsteps of Josh, now a football player at Dartmouth, and sister Bianca, who plays basketball at Houston, to athletic success. As they were growing up, the three of them would play against one another, from flag football in their front yard to the basketball hoop on the side of the house.
“It was just competing against each other,” Bianca said, “because we all just want to win.”
That competitive fire got especially hot between Josh and Justise, who gradually got into more and more physical battles with each other as they got older.
“They might have ended in some punches,” Justise said with a smile.
“One of my things I brag about is he’s never beat me, because I’ll just foul him until he quits,” Josh said with a laugh. “He still to this day has never beat me in 1-on-1.
“I haven’t played him since 10th grade … [but] you have to pick your spots.”
That competition even spilled over to their mother, Robin Davis, who said once on a visit to New York, the family was playing touch football in Central Park … and she wound up with a broken finger.
“We’re very competitive when it comes to sports,” Davis said. “I just had to make sure they’re well-rounded, because the sports would take care of themselves.”
To that end, Davis did everything she could to try and expose her kids to as many activities as possible.
“That was important [for] whatever they do,” she said. “[With] Justise playing basketball, create a memory. When they’re going off to school, take a class they tell you not to take. Take guitar, take some off-the-wall interest you have.
“Just go off the beaten path a little bit and create your own memory.”
Davis practiced what she preached, particularly by focusing on birthdays. For everyone in the family, the party for Justise’s fourth birthday — when she rented a firetruck to drive him and his friends around the neighborhood — stands out above the rest.
“As a kid, that’s what you dream about,” Justise said. “You want to be a policeman or a firefighter, so it was cool for us to live through that with the sirens going around the neighborhood. The neighbors were looking at us kind of weird, but it was a fun time.”
Davis’ push for her children to be well-rounded went beyond asking them to try and create memories, and to throw them fun birthday parties. She also believed strongly in education, which is how Justise wound up spending his high school years at St. John’s — one of Houston’s top academic schools — instead of playing for a more traditional basketball power.
That influence has rubbed off, as basketball is far from his only interest. Justise is a history buff, a fan of Theodore Roosevelt, and his mother said he spends hours sitting in front of the television watching the History Channel.
“He just wants to absorb, and thinks he can get smarter by watching it,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll say, ‘Can I go to ESPN?’ and he’ll say, ‘No! Not yet!’ ”
Justise also has developed his mother’s interest in art, having made trips to both The Museum of Modern Art and The Whitney Museum of Modern Art while preparing for the draft here in New York.
Though academics were the driving force behind his going to St. John’s, he also was excited about the opportunity to play alongside his older brother for one of the first times on an organized team, as well as the chance to play under their father, who is an assistant coach at the school.
While he was subjected to the typical freshman duties, including having to pick his number last — “That really upset him,” Josh said. “That really bugged him.” — it also gave the brothers a chance to spend time together in ways they still appreciate several years later.
“It was cool to play with him and kind of see him mature as an individual, as a basketball player and an individual off the court, and it was cool to have moments where I was like, ‘my brother is really good,’ ” Josh said.
“Life is really short, so it was cool to spend time with him and play a game that you really like.”
It also didn’t hurt the two of them had so much success together. Though he was the youngest player on a senior-laden roster, by the end of the season, Justise had made himself the driving force behind the team, both on the court and in the locker room.
That included a memorable scene in the locker room of that state title game, which saw St. John’s trailing by six at the break after trailing by double-digits in the first quarter and nearly getting blown out of the game before it began.
“He said, ‘This isn’t about X’s and O’s, this is about heart. Do you want to win a championship, or what?’ ” Baber said. “Here he is in a room full of seniors that have been through the battles, and he’s mature and confident enough to lead us.”
It also was at St. John’s where Justise developed the versatility in his game — one of his biggest strengths — thanks to Baber and his father focusing on a well-rounded game.
“Between the relationships with the community and my other classmates, and ultimately being there, not being with other McDonald’s All-Americans or high profile guys, it just made me a better player,” Justise said. “I had to learn to be more versatile and do a lot more things on the court, so it made my game more well rounded and better from that sense.”
His time at St. John’s — which went from zero state basketball championships in more than 30 years to three titles in Justise’s four years — reinforced his reputation as a winner.
Whether it was high school, playing for various USA Basketball teams or this past season at Duke, where he was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player while helping lead the Blue Devils to a national championship, winning has defined Justise at every level.
“He just always wants to win,” Davis said. “Always. He doesn’t really care if he scores the most or makes the last play, but he always wants to win.
“He was always like that. All of my stories [about him] relate to that. Whether it was getting an A on his paper, or on the basketball court, he always wants to do his best and win.”
It’s a trait that has benefited Justise, who likely will be one of the first several players taken in Thursday’s NBA draft, and is one of several options for the Knicks with the No. 4 pick.
“It really is the chance of a lifetime,” Josh said. “It doesn’t really happen to a lot of people. It’s going to be crazy to hear his name called. We’ve watched so many drafts together, between my mom and Justise and me. We always looked at the families at the table and talked about how it’d be cool to one day be there.”
The Winslow family will be there this week, celebrating the culmination of a lifetime’s worth of hard work that will result in Justise getting the chance to hear his name called, walk across the stage, shake commissioner Adam Silver’s hand and see his dreams of following in his father’s footsteps into the NBA fully realized.
“It’s been a great process,” Justise said. “It’s been a lot of fun meeting people, going new places, living your dream.
“It’s about making all the hard work pay off.”