Former NBA player Brandon Jennings recently appeared on the Catch12 podcast with Ja Morant’s father, Tee Morant, and opened up on his personal life, growing up alongside talented players like DeMar DeRozan, Jrue Holiday, and more.
While talking about his personal life and his years in the AAU, he also recalled being envious of these players because they had both parents around in the house.
“Jrue Holiday is somebody that really inspired me growing up, DeMar DeRozan, Larry Drew, and Malcolm Lee. And the reason why I wanted to be so much better than them is that I envied them because they had both parents, right?
“I’m coming to the gym at a young age, and I’m seeing Jrue Holiday with both his parents, Demar DeRozan, Larry Drew, and Malcolm Lee, and it made me really envy them.”
“Just because I knew that at the end of the day, they’re going home to both parents with the tools and everything, and I got to figure out where’s my next meal or I got to play in this AAU tournament.”
“So, I had to be better like that. That drove me to want to be, you know, better than him, like for, you know, competition-wise. But yeah, then you know, of course, I grew up, and I understood more life, but when I was younger, I used to really envy them because of that.”
Brandon Jennings lost his father at a very young age. His father reportedly separated from Alice Knox, Jennings’ mother, when Brandon was only three years old. Later, he reportedly took his own life when Jennings was only seven or eight years old.
His mother, Alice Knox, left her own career behind to support her son’s basketball career when Jennings got a contract in Italy. Earlier in the same interview, Jennings claimed that he started giving rent to his mother at age 11 just because he wanted to contribute and help his mother.
“I was paying my mama rent at 11 years old, hooping. Like I played for one of the best AAU teams. You can ask DeMar DeRozan. We played on the same AAU team at 11, 12 years old. And we were running through everybody.”
Jennings earned a little over $40 million in the nine seasons he played in the NBA. But even before that, he had gotten his first professional contract in Italy with Lottomatica Roma one year before he was drafted to the NBA, where he earned $1.2 million in salary and endorsements at just 19 years of age.
Jennings ended up playing for multiple NBA teams but spent the longest time with the Milwaukee Bucks. He averaged 14.1 points, 5.7 assists, and 3.0 rebounds in his nine-year career.
Jennings eventually left the NBA due to too many issues in his close circle over money, and he admitted he felt like a “cash cow” and an “ATM” for his close ones, which complicated things a lot for him. It is safe to say, money is not the solution to all our problems.
