Rayjon Tucker on the off-court moments that have shaped his remarkable life

As reported by Herald Sun Sport

Call it serendipity. Call it spiritual.

But some of the biggest moments in Melbourne United import Rayjon Tucker’s life have to be more than coincidence.

From how he landed at Melbourne United, to the discovery of the cousin he never knew he had and growing up quicker than most kids, Tuck’s life has been filled with as many ‘wow’ moments off the court as he’s produced on it.

The high-flying American, his cousin Elijah Davey and mum Tuwanna McNeely-Tucker sat to talk about their lives with Michael Randall.

‘YO, THIS IS YOUR COUSIN’

Spend five minutes with Tuck and Eli and you’d think they’d known each other forever.

Eli doubles as Tuck’s manager and each has a habit of finishing the other’s sentences.

They’re like two peas in a pod — but they only met about four years ago and the story of how it happened is wild.

Tucker got his start in the NBA with the Utah Jazz in 2019, where the pair — who had no idea who each other was or that they were cousins — crossed paths.

Eli had just finished college and childhood friend Justin Wright-Foreman, on a two-way with the Jazz at the time, invited him to stay in Salt Lake and work out with him.

That’s where things get weird.

Tuck, from Charlotte, had been on the west coast of the US before he got the call up to Utah. Eli hails from New York, on the east coast.

“I would go to the gym with Justin and hoop with them and Tuck was there but I didn’t even know his name,” Eli, a feisty point guard who has just signed with Big V club Chelsea, said.

“Whenever he’d see me he’d be like ‘what’s good?’ because he knew I was Justin’s friend.”

A phone call from Eli’s mum changed everything — eventually.

“She’s like ‘you got a cousin who lives out there and his name is Rayjon Tucker’,” Eli said.

“Justin, he was in his room, he walked out and said, ‘Oh, he’s on my team’.”

Eli, mind blown, decided not to tell Tucker because he didn’t want to be a seen as a hanger-on, like so many stereotypical members of an NBA player’s entourage.

It was always going to come out though and, after more than a month, Jarrell Brantley, then Tucker’s Utah teammate who is now also in the NBL with the New Zealand Breakers, decided at a get together he would break the news.

“We get to Tuck’s house, we having fun, we chilling, Jarrell looks at me and he’s like ‘I’ma tell him’. I’m like ‘no bro, chill, don’t worry about it’,” Eli said.

Tucker’s in the kitchen “ear hustling”.

“So I’m like ‘tell who what?’,” Tucker said.

In something akin to a scene from a movie when the record scratches — Tuck makes the sound — the music stops and it’s all eyes on the pair: ‘Yo, this your cousin’, Brantley says.

Davey’s surname was once McNeely — that’s Tuwanna’s maiden name, even though everyone knows her as Ms Tucker — and, now it’s out in the open. They work the phones and figure out Eli’s grandfather is Tuck’s grandmother’s brother.

So they’re second cousins, call each other cousin, but are more like brothers.

‘HE SPOKE IT INTO EXISTENCE’

So how on earth does a kid trying to reignite an NBA career end up Down Under?

United coach Dean Vickerman was immediately taken with his athleticism — he’s one of the best pure athletes ever to play in the NBL — and made contact with Tucker’s manager during last year’s NBA Summer League.

He’d decided to wait until after Tucker’s commitments were fulfilled to discuss future moves, but a chance meeting with United boss Nick Truelson, in the US with Vickerman and the scouting team, changed all that.

“It’s a crazy story, I was walking back to my hotel room after breakfast and Nick was checking out of his hotel,” Tucker said.

“He was standing right there as I was walking by and he must have recognised me and introduced himself and said they’d spoken to my agent and thought we could help each other.”

Tucker is a spiritual, God-driven person who doesn’t believe in coincidence — everything happens for a reason.

“That was part of the reason why I felt so comfortable coming out here to Australia,” he said.

“He said he was trying to run into me while he was there — he spoke it into existence.

“Things like that don’t just happen.

“He wasn’t sitting there, waiting for me — God did that.

“It was a no-brainer once that opportunity really came.”

‘I F***ING SUCK’: THE EVOLUTION OF A YOUNG IMPORT

The life of an import can be a roller coaster — especially as 24-year-old (he turned 25 in September) on your first trip overseas.

Tucker acknowledges it was a tough start to life in the NBL and he’s not hiding it.

The NBL is a different beast compared to the NBA and the G League, especially, which is packed with talented athletes, many who don’t necessarily possess the basketball IQ and intelligence of ballers in Australia.

NBL teams quickly zeroed in on taking away Tucker’s biggest weapons got physical, clogged the paint and went under screens, daring him to beat them from deep.

“Me and Eli have had conversations and I’m all kinds of frustrated,” Tucker said.

“What’s going on, I f***ing suck, this shit is different.”

“He was just like ‘Bro, it’s a different game you’ve got to just add to what you are.

“You’ve got it. It’s just you’ve never had to use it.

“Now you’ve got to use your floaters, now you’ve got to use your mid-range, now you have to shoot the three-ball.”

The struggles led to honest, tough conversations with Vickerman that Tucker admits could have gone “one of two ways” — clashes with star imports and their coaches often end in tears.

“One thing we talked about before I came was being upfront and blunt, just so I know where I stand so I’m never really blindsided,” Tucker said.

“Yes, we had those tough conversations where he’s like ‘you need to shoot the ball, you need to do this, you need to be better defensively, you need to spread the floor, you need to box out, you need to rebound’.

“Sometimes I was like ‘damn, Deano’, but I stood back and I really didn’t take those things as him trying to nitpick and be on me, I took those as him giving me a chance to grow and polish myself and be the best professional that I can be.

“I just give a lot of credit to him just being on my case and helping me be better and that helps the team.

“I would be selfish to think of it in any other type of way.”

United had an 11-day break during the November FIBA window and Tucker used it as an opportunity to renew his dedication to expanding his game.

“It was me and Eli, in the gym, getting reps, late nights, coming back, getting shots up with (United assistant coach) D-Mac (Darryl McDonald), just really putting that work in and expanding my game and I think it’s showing,” he said.

It worked.

In 10 games before the FIBA break, Tucker’s defenders stood there and watched him shoot 28 per cent from deep, making 11 of 38 attempts. In United’s 11 games since resumption, his attempts have almost doubled and he’s making them at an elite 43 per cent, 27 for 63. With teams forced to mark him more tightly, he’s found avenues to the basket have opened up, helping him increase his scoring average from 13.2 points per game before the FIBA break to 21.5 after.

“You’re not going to be able to keep going under (screens) on me,” he said.

“If that’s the bet you want to take, I’ll make you die off that bet.

“They have to play me tight now because I’m just as good driving downhill as I am catching and shooting or coming off screens to shoot the ball.

“It’s just been a growing experience for me on and off the court and I’ve enjoyed every step of the way, even the hard parts.”

A MOTHER’S PRIDE

Tuwanna is never short of a word. She’s a bubbly, warm, outgoing person and gave a brilliant in-game interview during a recent United clash.

But, for most of our 45 minute chat, she sits quietly, listening intently to her 191cm, musclebound ‘big baby’ who has been the man of the house for as long as he can remember.

Tucker speaks about how there are times when basketball “isn’t fun” and he has to search for the joy in it.

“You can get down on yourself and I’ve had those days where I’m like ‘I don’t even know if I want to keep playing’,” he says.

“When you’re a kid, you say ‘once I stop having fun with it, I’m done with it’.

“There are those days where you feel down and you go get in the gym by yourself, you start thinking, you get up your shots, and afterwards you go home and you’re like ‘OK, that’s why I love it.”

It’s those mature words that bring tears of pride from mum.

Tuwanna raised Tuck and his brother Tevin by herself and said the family has had to find great strength through adversity.

“When people say things about your child, ‘he’s only going to be athletic’, or ‘he needs to stick with football’, or ‘he needs to do whatever’ and to hear it from other males — you have to fight for your child every single day,” Tuwanna says, through her tears.

“You say things to your child hoping to help them grow up to be strong and a good person and you know they hear it, but you’re not sure if they’re really listening.

“To sit here and listen to him speak and see where he is now, all I know is, I won.”

Brisbane Bullets 5-13, ninth v Melbourne United 9-12, eighth
Sunday, January 1, 4pm AEDT, Nissan Arena
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