JELLY FAM: WELCOME TO THE NEW HOOPS PHENOMENON
New York City's No. 1 high school point guard Isaiah Washington and Jordan Walker, Pedro Marquez and more are breathing life back into youth basketball culture. The gymnasium inside Harlem's Milbank Center was the laboratory that birthed the Jelly, New York City's freshest basketball phenomenon. It's a singular spectacle reenergizing the city's hoops scene in ways few have ever seen before. It began with a flashy yet subtly difficult move, a reincarnation of a basketball classic from a bygone era.
With one signature move, Washington and his crew have created a buzz while toasting kids on the court with their Jelly. They have unleashed a vivacious force upon a scene that has been alarmingly dormant recently.
Remember all that talk about New York basketball being dead?
- ISAIAH WASHINGTON. Before Washington’s freshman year at St. Raymond, the Jelly began morphing into something much bigger than just an adolescent’s layup.
Isaiah Washington is working the crowd at Brooklyn Bridge Park Pier 2 into a frenzy. Hand-clapping at the standing-room-only Under Armour Elite 24 basketball game gives way to a rising crescendo of yelling and stomping as Washington slowly brings the ball upcourt for Team Clutch. He pounds the rock until he is met by his defender, who's crouched in a textbook stance that says "Bring it!"
And that's how it begins.
The 18-year-old dribbles between his legs twice at the top of the key and then rocks a hesitation crossover. He's probing, testing the sturdiness of his opponent's ankles as he takes two steps back and to the side.
The defender-Wilmington, Delaware's, Trevon Duval, the country's top class of 2017 point guard recruit, representing Team Drive in the game-ill-advisedly takes the bait and moves forward.
When Duval gets closer, Washington explodes into the paint from above the left elbow on the three-point line with a sudden shift of gears. He motors toward the basket with Duval now helplessly riding his hip. With two hard dribbles, Washington elevates into the New York air and straight to the rim.
He raises the ball with his right hand, pulls it back down, taps it with his left, and just as he begins his descent, unleashes a finger roll that kisses off the glass and drops softly through the net.
Washington, the co-creator of this burgeoning youth hoops movement known as the Jelly Fam, has an easy smile, laced with a delicate sparkle in his dimples that belies his toughness. He just happens to be the No. 1 point guard and top overall basketball prospect in the city and the floor general of prodigious talent at St. Raymond High School for Boys in the Bronx.
"The New York City point guard is flashy, plays with a lot of heart, and I represent that with pride," Washington says. "The first steps I ever took were trying to get a hold of a basketball. I grew up going to the park every day to play against the best players out there because I didn't want anybody to be better than me."
With one signature move, Washington and his crew have created a buzz while toasting kids on the court with their Jelly. They have unleashed a vivacious force upon a scene that has been alarmingly dormant recently.
Remember all that talk about New York basketball being dead?
That's far from the truth. The Jelly is not just a syrupy move punctuated with a sweet touch. It has resurrected a vital pulse, hearkening back to the days when kids climbed on trees to get a glimpse of Dr. J at Rucker Park in the '70s.
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A Harlem resident from the Lincoln Projects, Washington spent countless hours at Milbank while in elementary school, dreaming of one day etching his name into the city's considerable hoops tapestry.
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