CHICAGO — Rakeem Christmas scans the room, his eyes darting back and forth toward the various clusters of crowds surrounding some of the other prospects gathered in the back of the Quest Multisport Complex. The throng around Pat Connaughton seems to be getting bigger, as the former Notre Dame star answers the 100th question about his baseball career.
Christmas then turns his attention to a team beat writer who sees an opportunity to get some one-on-one time, and the reporter asks the Syracuse forward one too many questions about the NCAA investigation that led to the team losing 12 scholarships over the next four seasons – and kept the senior from having any chance at finishing his career with one more memorable ACC Tournament due to a self-imposed post-season ban.
“It was rough in the beginning,” Christmas said, referring to the Syracuse investigation. “But after a couple days, you realize I’ve been to the tournament three times, went to the Final Four my sophomore year. A lot of people haven’t done that. I’ve been there. I’ve done it. This year, realizing I can go out there and just keep playing, the rest of those last games I was just playing for an opportunity to get ready to play in the NBA.”
To his credit, Christmas handles the questions respectfully and with a great deal of patience, especially considering he just finished playing a glorified AAU pickup game in front of media, scouts and team executives. It’s May 14, Day 1 of the NBA Draft Combine, and if things seem a little hectic now, there’s plenty of craziness to come in the next two months.
Compared to what he’s been used to, craziness is a nice change of pace. Christmas has been posted up training at Impact Vegas in Las Vegas for nearly a month. Everyone always says “there are worse places to be stuck.” But if the Strip, and everything along with it, can wear on a person after just a few days, a month of being alone with nothing but basketball, a hotel room and a well-curated Netflix queue is downright torturous.
It will all be worth it. The hotels and flights and interviews are all leading to something tangible, and Christmas is finally this close to realizing a dream that he (and pretty much everyone who’s ever picked up a basketball) has had for most of his life.
You may already know part of Christmas’s story. The CliffsNotes version is one that’s been written, and will be written a bunch. He moved to the Virgin Islands from New Jersey when he was 2 and lost his mother to complications from lupus when he was 5. His grandmother raised him until he was 13, when his aunt Amira Hamid brought him back to the states as he matured and became a top recruit, being named a McDonald’s All-American.
“She was really the reason I’m in the situation I’m in right now,” Christmas said. “I don’t know who else would take in a teenager when they got out of college. But she took me in and kept pushing me to play basketball. She’s always there for me, and I’m always happy to have her in my corner because if it wasn’t for her, I probably would be somewhere doing something I shouldn’t be doing.”
What you probably don’t know unless you followed the Orange closely is just how much Christmas loves the show “SpongeBob SquarePants.” (Along with a lot of other cartoons.) Or that his aunt considers him a “big kid,” and for as intense as he is on the court, once you get to know him, he’s as quick with a joke as anyone.
“He’s very, very funny,” Hamid said. “At first, when people hear me say that, they’re like, ‘Rakeem, funny? Nah.’ But when they get the opportunity to get to know him, they definitely see that he has this quirky kind of Will Ferrell sense of humor. He’s always laughing and he wants to keep everyone around him happy. That’s his purpose when he’s not on the court.”
No player save for Kristaps Porzingis and his never-ending media barrage likely elevated his draft stock more than Christmas did in the pre-Draft process. A late second-rounder coming in, with the Syracuse cloud still Eeyore-ing over his head, Christmas saw an opportunity to change the narrative.
It started at the Combine, where Rakeem flat-out produced in the five-on-five setting. He scored at will and looked more physically developed than a lot of the other guys on the floor. It’s always hard to tell what exactly is happening in these hastily put together games, but Christmas impressed with a variety of moves and a versatile skill set. During the ESPN2 broadcast, Jeff Goodman was quoted as saying, “I’m not sure any player has helped himself more than Rakeem Christmas in these two days.”
The team workouts were a blur save for a hiccup where he was put up in a rough hotel in Memphis due to a travel gap between visits to the Grizzlies and the Nets (“That was the strangest thing,” Christmas says about that experience). Heading into Thursday’s Draft, Christmas has seen himself rise from a player projected to go in the 50s to somewhere in the early second round, with an outside shot of going in the first.
Christmas and Hamid drove up to New York City on Tuesday side by side in anticipation of what’s to come. They’re rushing around the city together getting everything squared away. They launched Rakeem’s official Facebook page on Wednesday. And come Thursday, Amira will be the proudest person there when Christmas hears his name called.
“When you love someone,” Hamid said, “and you truly love someone, because that’s key, you put yourself on the line and do whatever is possible for their happiness. At the end of the day, Rakeem’s happiness is my happiness. His happiness is my family’s happiness because he’s literally the last living thing that is a tie to my sister. We’re trying to do her honor justice by doing him justice.”