ETERNAL FLAME
No. 24 pick Christopher blends engaging personality, hard-nosed mentality on court
Josh Christopher brings mix of confidence, compassion.
When Josh Christopher was in elementary school, his father, Laron, received a phone call from the school principal.
Josh was being “too aggressive” while playing soccer with the other kids, the principal told Laron. She wanted him to calm down.
“I said ‘Listen lady, fire is aggressive,’ ” Laron said. “In California, the wildfires, we watch it burn up acres of land every year, but that same fire is on your stove and you cook with it every day. He’s fiery. You want to control the fire, not put it out. He’s got that passion no one else has, so put him in an environment to learn from others who know how to control the fire.”
Josh Christopher, the Rockets’ No. 24 pick in the NBA draft, has always moved through the world with a combination of unbridled confidence and passion.
From Christopher’s earliest days as a scrawny prankster, through his rise to social media stardom as a coveted college basketball recruit, to hearing his name called as the Rockets’ fourth and final NBA draft selection, every step he and his family have taken has been about harnessing his fire.
The 19-year-old guard out of Arizona State is committed to keeping it burning in Houston.
“I’ma come in and battle,” Christopher said. “I think I’m fearless so whatever we’re up against, I’m gonna be ready. You’re gonna see players who are gonna put in work night in and night out. We’ll have practice, come back to the gym, get shots up before. Just guys that want to get better, and I think I’m one of those guys.”
Growing up a hooper
One night when Josh was around 8, Caleb Christopher returned home from the gym to find his younger brother sitting in his room with tears streaming down his face.
Josh was upset because Caleb hadn’t told him he was going to play basketball, and he couldn’t find his big brother.
“He was like, ‘I just walked around the whole apartment complex looking for you by myself,’ ” Caleb said. “He’s like, ‘Don’t ever leave me without telling me.’ Josh has the biggest heart in the world. His heart is everything.”
Family and basketball have guided every decision Josh has made. He was raised in Southern California as the youngest of four basketball-playing siblings. Oldest brother Patrick played at Cal before pro stints in the NBA and Europe. Sister Paris went to St. Mary’s on a basketball scholarship. Caleb played his first two college seasons at Arizona State, where he eventually was joined by Josh, before transferring this offseason to Tennessee Tech.
There was no doubt Josh would be a hooper, too, not just because of his family history but because of the joy and courage he derived from the sport — and from everything, really.
When Halona Christopher gave birth to Josh in 2001, the labor took only about 20 minutes. Because of this, Josh’s father likes to say that Josh “came into this world ready.”
People close to Christopher rarely see him discouraged. His default facial expression is a smile so big it seems to wear him. Teammates and coaches say his outgoing, effervescent personality is infectious. On the sideline and in the locker room, Christopher is a consistent well of encouragement and jokes. On the court, his intensity lends itself to explosive bursts of downhill speed and athletic plays off the backboard.
Josh’s parents are deeply religious and passed their spirituality onto their children.
Laron, a Christian musician, likes to speak about divine numerology. Josh wears No. 13 on his jersey, which he got by taking Kobe Bryant’s 24 and subtracting 11 — the biblical number representing disorder and chaos, Laron says. At Arizona State, Josh received permission from James Harden to wear Harden’s retired No. 13.
So when Josh got drafted by the Rockets with the No. 24 pick, to the team where Harden’s No. 13 also is retired, Laron took it as a sign.
“At the beginning of a fairytale, it says ‘Once upon a time,’ and the last thing it says is ‘And they live happily ever after,’ ” Laron said. “Now they’re living the happily ever after. It feels like a fairytale.”
With the Rockets, Christopher will reunite with longtime friend and former AAU teammate Jalen Green, the No. 2 pick of the draft.
When Christopher and Green were in seventh grade, they played together on the Oakland Soldiers grassroots team. They were young for their grade and not as physically developed as other players on the team. Despite showing glimpses of promise, they did not win spots in the starting lineup. When the Soldiers won AAU Nationals in Italy, Green and Christopher came off the bench. They nicknamed themselves the Bench Bros, the beginning of a bond that has persevered through the better part of a decade.
“They had that connection because they were coming off the bench together,” said Soldiers coach Loren Leath. “They got to push each other like, ‘Man, we gotta get better. Our time is gonna come.’ ”
Christopher and Green are the only players from that Soldiers team so far to make it to the NBA.
They played together again on the Vegas Elite grassroots team in summer 2019, drawing standingroom-only crowds and entertaining NBA spectators including LeBron James. They went their separate ways the following year, Christopher off to college at Arizona State and Green to the fledgling G League Ignite team, before both became first-round draft picks thanks to Houston.
“Man, I don’t know how to explain it. It almost doesn’t seem real,” Christopher said, grinning widely at Green, who sat to his left on the Rockets practice court. “Who let this happen? I don’t know. We were on the bench together in middle school, and we just stayed true to the grind, linked up one more time before we went to college and here we are.”
Green said the two friends briefly entertained the possibility they could become NBA teammates in the days before the draft, but they didn’t know for sure if it would become reality. When commissioner Adam Silver announced Christopher to the Rockets near the end of the first round, Green was elated.
“I was like, ‘Wow, that’s crazy,’ ” Green said. “As soon as I seen it and heard it, I went straight to Instagram and posted: ‘413, it continues.’ So it was super cool.”
As unlikely as their reunion is, Christopher’s coaches are hardpressed to remember a time when they didn’t believe he was capable of an NBA future, mostly because Christopher so clearly believed in himself.
“Josh takes what are normally ill-advised shots,” Leath said. “He was the kid who would pull up for a 3 on the fast break. He was that kid. His confidence was on such a high level. You’d be like, ‘Damn, Josh, don’t take that,’ and then it goes in and you’re like, ‘Oh well, OK then.’ ”
Brian Sitter, the director of Vegas Elite who coached Christopher and Green, said Christopher had a way of making the game look easy.
“I think Jalen is super skilled, but he’s more of a quiet assassin,” Sitter said. “We would have games where it would seem like Josh had all of the highlights and then at the end of the game Jalen would have 29 points and seven assists almost without making a big noise. Whereas Josh is flamboyant, outgoing and his game is like that. He’s a big play guy and a big moment guy.”
Where does that confidence come from? Christopher’s father surmised that it is partly from growing up being challenged by his siblings. On some level, though, it’s just innate.
“I think intellectual people are confident because it’s knowledge instead of believing,” Laron said. “Josh approaches it not from, I believe I’m gonna make this shot. He approaches it like, I know I’m gonna make this shot.”
A work in progress
Caleb Christopher’s first basketball memory of his brother involves just the two of them playing one-on-one in their backyard in Lancaster, Calif., filming each other with iPods and later cutting the footage into homemade mixtapes complete with songs downloaded from the internet.
Type “Josh Christopher” into the YouTube search bar today, and you’ll see tens of thousands of highlight videos curated by everyone from amateur videographers and adoring fans to mainstream basketball media outlets like Overtime and SLAM.
What you won’t find are those earliest backyard mixtapes. Caleb and Josh never uploaded their homemade reels to the web. That wasn’t the point, anyway. The videos exist only on a hard drive somewhere, a memory of Josh Christopher pre-social media fame and college recruiting flurry.
Christopher has his own lifestyle brand, the Gup Store, which his father and brother represented on the sweatshirts they wore to his introductory press conference with the Rockets. He has 840,000 Instagram followers, many of whom began tracking him when he was only in middle school. Still a teenager, he has already successfully parlayed his public image into a brand.
The thing is, people who know Christopher swear there is no split between his public and private personas. What you see is what everybody gets.
“It makes me happy that everybody loves my brother because I love my brother,” Caleb said. “I love the attention he gets. It doesn’t change him, honestly. I feel like he gets the attention because people want to be like Josh, in a sense. It’s like they can see the charisma and energy that he has, and he’s just free. He’s himself as well, so he gives people the opportunity to be themselves and he accepts people.”
It’s easy to see how. Christopher is charismatic, eloquent and expresses himself through bold fashion choices like the all-denim suit he rocked Friday for his first press conference with the Rockets. He smiled before each answer he gave as cameras flashed and his words were broadcast to a collective audience of millions.
He appears unburdened by it all.
“I don’t feel pressure,” Christopher said. “I mean, you got to just soak in the moment and trust your work.”
Christopher is one of four players drafted by the Rockets, along with Green, Turkish center Alperen Sengun and Spanish forward Usman Garuba. They represent the franchise’s new era, a prospect that is both exciting and heavy with responsibility.
Christopher always has excelled in the face of adversity. He’s the type of guy who plays better with a hand in his face, who is always trying to outdo himself. He’ll begin his NBA tenure with the same unrelenting work ethic and trademark confidence.
“The more you get to know him, the more you realize it’s not a front, it’s not an act or a disguise. He really is that kid,” Sitter said. “One of the things people have asked me, general managers and different NBA guys, is how do you think he’ll handle it if he’s not playing a lot? I told them I think he’s going to be an amazing teammate. If he’s on bench and Jalen is starting and playing 30 minutes, I think he’ll be Jalen’s righthand man, the first one to congratulate him and running on the court to give high-fives. He’ll be patient knowing his time is going to come.”
The Rockets’ rebuild into a championship contender figures to be a slow one. Patience and consistency are essential parts of the message general manager Rafael Stone and the Rockets brass are sending to their new draftees.
“I’m sure they’re already sick of me telling them that they’re talented, but they’re not good yet,” Stone said. “So the idea is to really grow together and everybody not become good, become great.”
Christopher is used to his growth taking place in the spotlight, and he understands that the process is not always linear. Confidence cannot exist without humility, as represented by a line in Christopher’s Twitter bio.
“A masterpiece and a work in progress,” it reads, and the Rockets will be happy to get both.