Clippers: They’re eager to work with Ohio’s Jason Preston, who they drafted 33rd.
If Jason Preston were writing this article, the retired sports blogger-turned-NBA point guard said he would focus on the journey that led to his name being called 33rd in the 2021 NBA Draft.
He landed Thursday night with the Clippers, who traded a 2026 second-round pick to Orlando to bring him aboard. The Clippers also traded up to acquire 21st pick Keon Johnson, a wing from Tennessee, and are expected to acquire Kentucky guard Brandon Boston Jr. for cash at No. 51 from New Orleans.
Preston, a 21-year-old from Orlando, took an entirely unconventional route to L.A., and it was his background, so rich in resilience and self-belief, that impressed the Clippers as much as the 6-foot-4 point guard’s floor vision, competitiveness and “unorthodox game,” as Lawrence Frank, the Clippers’ president of basketball operations described it.
As a senior at Boone High School, Preston stood just a shade over 6-feet and averaged just 2.2 points per game. He started just one game that season (on “Senior Day”), graduated and planned to “be a regular student,” enrolling at Central Florida, where he was going to study journalism.
He even was warming up as a contributor to FanSided’s “Piston Powered” site, where he penned analysis of players such as Reggie Jackson, the former Detroit point guard who emerged as one of the Clippers’ heroes last postseason.
“Deep down,” Preston said he always knew he had game, but those Boone Braves were pretty good, so he accepted his role and was content to put in time at local rec centers. “I was always playing,” he said, “and doing pretty well.”
Fate intervened when a friend invited him to join his AAU team for a couple of tournaments just weeks before Preston was to begin college.
“They needed a fifth person,” an enthused Preston said by phone on Thursday evening, when no amount of pinching was going to wake him from an NBA dream realized. “I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll play. It sounds like an opportunity to play and I didn’t get much of an opportunity in high school.’”
In those two tournaments, Preston said he “played really, really well and we won some games we shouldn’t have.” That attracted attention from a few Division II and low-level Division I college programs, none of which had scholarships left to offer so soon before the next academic year.
It was enough to compel Preston to abandon his plans to go to UCF; instead he wound up at Believe Prep in Athens, Tennessee, where he again struggled to find minutes even as he grew taller and stronger.
“There were like six different teams, 70 kids, it was unbelievable,” he said. “And I bounced around from team to team. … I was on the lowest team and played pretty well with my boys and got bounced to one of the best teams and then, toward the end of the year, realized I didn’t have any film.”
So during a long team bus ride, Preston gathered some clips that a friend spliced together into a two-minute highlight real that effectively showcased his vision and ball-handling, as well as his basketball instincts and selfless style of play.
Jason Preston
Believe Prep posted the video on Twitter on April 10, 2018. On May 7, Preston signed on with the Ohio Bobcats, a mid-major in Athens, Ohio, that had gone 14-17 the previous season and hadn’t won a Mid-American Conference title or reached the NCAA Tournament since 2012.
As a junior last season, Preston’s determination helped Ohio win its conference and upset fourth-seeded Virginia in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Preston started 73 of 82 games as a Bobcat, including all 19 in his final season, when, as a junior, he led Ohio with 16.1 points and seven assists per game while shooting 51.9% from the field and 39.5% from 3-point range.
He had an eye-opening 31-point, eight-assist, zero-turnover performance against then-No. 8 Illinois in November that impressed Fighting Illini coach Brad Underwood so much that he raved afterward: “He’s an NBA talent.”
If there was any doubt, Preston scored 11 points, grabbed 13 rebounds and had eight assists in the upset of Virginia, when he absolutely solidified his spot in the NBA’s pool of draftable prospects.
Twice Preston worked out with the Clippers, so he had a feeling there was some legitimate interest, but he didn’t know how much until Thursday night when they proved Preston’s long-held hunch correct.
“I mean, I can’t say enough about how much it means to me,” Preston said. “This is all a dream come true, to be in this spot now, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Honestly, this is something I’ve been planning my whole life. It’s awesome to know the payoff for all the work I put in, all the basketball I watched – and I’ve still got a lot of work to do and to improve on.
“I’m just so excited that the L.A. Clippers believe in me.”
Preston said he was thinking Thursday of his late mother, Judith Sewell, who introduced him to the game as a boy and shared with him her love of the Pistons. She died when he was 15 after battling lung cancer for several years.
“I wish she could be here, but she’s in a much better place and no longer has to suffer,” he said. “I got the best mom in the whole world, she raised me to be the person I am today; I’m so thankful for her.”
And, if you’re wondering, yes, Preston’s personal story of beating long odds and overcoming such a substantial loss did compel the Clippers to move him up their draft board, just as Assistant General Manager Trent Redden’s scouting did.
“The thing is, we recruit people, not just players,” Frank said. “They obviously have to be good enough, but it is about people, and for lack of a better term, you’re placing bets on guys to have NBA careers.”