Oh, the genes have something to do with it. More than a little. Shabazz Muhammad isn’t sitting near the top of the 2012 high school rankings if his dad isn’t Ron Holmes, a star wing at USC in the mid-’80s. Equal genetic credit goes to his mom, Faye Muhammad (née Paige), a standout baller—and All-American hurdler—at Long Beach State. His sister, Asia, is a pro tennis player who has twice graced the court at the US Open, and his younger brother, Rashad, is a top-100 junior on the hardwood. Honestly, it would almost be more of a shock if Shabazz Muhammad was not one of the best ballplayers in the country.
So genetic inheritance gave him a head start, but Muhammad had to decide that he’d work to hone those gifts. Now a 6-6, 220-pound senior-to-be at Bishop Gorman HS in Las Vegas, Muhammad made that decision early on, whether or not he was fully conscious of it. “I had a ball in my hand since I was 2 years old,” he says. “We had a little court in our garage, and me and my dad would be in there for hours. He pushed me to the limit, but never quite too far.”
Holmes doesn’t deny that he nudged his son toward the game, but having played at a high level himself, he knows that nudging an uninterested child isn’t going to result in anything good. “But even at a young age,” Holmes says of his son, “whatever I would tell Shabazz to do, he would do. He had the motivation to be really good. Even when he was in middle school, before he had the size, he had the passion.”
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