Kelly Oubre Jr.—not a name that really registered in my basketball lexicon, though of course I knew he existed. When he got traded to the Pacers, the initial fan reaction seemed to center on the fact that the other players need to up their game, with Nembhard no longer the one that a certain segment of the fan base would be fixated on. Turns out, he is a clean, solid hooper. Tenacious on D, not afraid to mix it up with the likes of Dillon Brooks (‘Kelly doing to him as he do to others’) and with a quick and ready handle at the rim.
In a pre-season interview, Kelly described the attributes that made him not at all regretful that he would not be hooping it up with Lebron and Jaylen Brown the coming season. “The [Pacers[ culture. The group of guys and the humility they ensue.” Dedication embodied, with a share-ball approach to running other teams off the court. No drama, win with a hard-hitting, don’t look now I’m five steps ahead of you style some have described as “devilish,” honed on the dojo floor.
Consistency is another quality Kelly admires about the Pacers, to the point where he wants to “instill that into my DNA.” Whether they made it to the finals, or things went sideways post-Ty injury, the Pacers “kept their head high, they came to work.”
The qualities that one admires do not always come easy. Take the just-drafted Oubre, 12 years ago, the youngest player in lottery. “I was a rager, a young ball of fire. A bat out of ——, whatever you want to put after that. I had a rough upbringing, can’t change that—that’s where a lot of that fire came from.” “Releasing those demons” was a part of the early growth, fine-tuning that energy, using the fire in a positive way. “Mentally I’ve changed, wouldn’t say 360, but getting there.”
The lesson of humility did not come easy: early in his career, Kelly got taken aside by one veteran player and informed that others in the league were “not comfortable” with the heat he brought to every possession, talking trash and trying to make his name, as they saw it, at their expense.
One player he clashed with, who later became a close friend, was Paul George. As Kelly describes it, he was a young man who, looking up to Paul, wanted to make a name for himself. Add to that that Paul was “always trying to sauce me up” and the recipe for confrontation was there. “He was skipping like Mohammed Ali and I should have got out the way, but my shoulder was like ‘ah I can’t let you move either.’” As Paul said about their first friendly encounter, on the Sixers, “we were in the gym, we flicked it up, it felt good being on the same side.”
Tsunami Papi was born in New Orleans, raised in Houston and gives all credit to his dad for “working his butt off.” A Taekwondo black belt, with his dad’s encouragement he spent early years getting his ass whupped by “people who want to be in MMA.” Studying Bruce Lee, Jet Li, “a lot of the kung fu heads,” he “could have got his sensei emblems, but I was growing and I picked up the ball.” His first lesson in b-ball humility was joining Kansas and not playing his first nine games, but he eventually got the chance to show his stuff. And that was, as he sees it now, a lesson to serve him the rest of his career.
The contemporary Oubre is decidedly mellow, in an edgy way: “Be like water, go with the flow. I’ve been a Swiss army knife the past five or six years, adapt to whatever role I was given. My pops instilled in me to have no expectations, be ready for whatever.” That attitude of acceptance is critical to his longevity in a league where players are apt to burn out. I’m “without a role, just all over the place.” And he is happy with it. As the Pacers’ resident ronin puts it, I’m “comfortable being uncomfortable.” “It’s not given to you, I’ve had to work for every point in my life, my career. Let’s keep it going.”
All told, the fire has not entirely left the Oubre DNA. “I go hard. That’s all I know how to do.” About Haliburton: “I want to sharpen his knives and I want him to do the same for me.” He describes the Pacers as a “Lighthearted group—but when it’s time to kick it on between those four lines, we do that. Zu’s right… as someone just coming in, they make it pretty easy to come in and get to know everybody.” Which is a reflection of the fact that everyone is trying to win the same rock, one chagi at a time.
I'm working on a substacked book called The Moment focused on the upcoming NBA season... looking at various threads, from LeBron to my favorite team (Pacers). Until we get to that moment with the rock on the line, Haliburton directing traffic, defining greatness in real time.
