Raleigh native and Enloe grad PJ Tucker gets a hero’s welcome as NBA champion
NBA Champion and Enloe High School grad P.J. Tucker packed a bag for his weekend return to Raleigh, including at least 16 pairs of sneakers from his collection, which is rumored to be in the thousands. He planned to look his best.
A hero’s welcome was set for Tucker Saturday in Raleigh’s Chavis Park, not far from the Southeast Raleigh neighborhood where he grew up and learned to play basketball. Last month, 36-year-old Tucker was part of the Milwaukee Bucks team that won an NBA championship over the Phoenix Suns.
Saturday, Tucker came home to celebrate, saying Raleigh has a piece of the championship.
“I feel like with me winning it, the city won it,” Tucker said in an interview with The News & Observer. “I won it for the city.”
On Saturday Tucker received a proclamation from the City of Raleigh and signed autographs for an hour while a fierce afternoon storm roared outside. He signed basketballs and jerseys, caught up with old friends and called every kid “shorty” as they posed with him for photos.
“Raleigh is always home,” his father, Anthony Tucker Sr. said. “You can’t change that no matter what city you’re living in. He’s always giving back and helping people here.”
Tucker grew up playing basketball at the Raleigh Boys Club at 605 N. Raleigh Boulevard. His retired jersey hangs in the rafters at Enloe High School and his name still echoes through the gym.
Ron Williams was the athletic director at the Raleigh Boys & Girls Club when Tucker played. He said Tucker’s relentless style of defense has roots in Raleigh.
“Basically his experience at the club, the things he learned allowed him to be in the NBA as long as he has,” Williams said.
Williams said his Raleigh teams often found themselves outsized in travel tournaments, that his players had to play to a different set of advantages.
“When we put together tournament teams, there were a lot of taller players,” Williams said. “P.J. had to fight for rebounds against taller kids — basically what he did in the NBA. He learned to never give up, to continue to fight and believe in himself.”
“P.J.” is short for Pop Junior, after his father, whose nickname is Pop. Williams said he coached the senior Tucker in baseball at what was then the Raleigh Boys Club, before coaching at the Raleigh Boys and Girls Club.
Williams said he taught defense as the secret to winning.
“I used to teach (P.J.) that you could never lose a game if your man didn’t score,” Williams said. “In order to make sure you have a chance to win you had to hustle and guard your players. He learned to be a part of the team and that what you do as an individual can affect the outcome of the team.”
Williams said it was heartwarming to see Tucker finally reach the mountaintop of his sport.
“To me, we’re proud, very proud that someone from Raleigh has won a championship,” Williams said. “It seems like people from other places win these things. But here is someone from right here in our neighborhood.”
Once when Tucker was a 13-year-old playing a game in Kinston, Williams said, the other team had a teenage tower of a player standing at 6 foot 5. Tucker was 6 foot 1 at the time, he said, and they turned to him to carry the team.
“We had to go to P.J.,” Williams said. “Frankly, he out performed the kid. He outrebounded him, he outplayed him. He really bloossomed from there. He could have very easily given up. But I think that was the moment when he realized, ‘I can really play this game.’”
Tucker took an unconventional path to a title ring. He was a star at the University of Texas, but after a disappointing rookie year with the Toronto Raptors, the team that drafted him, he played in five different countries in five years. He eventually found a spot back in the NBA in 2012 with the Phoenix Suns.
Since then he’s stood out not just as a defensive specialist but a defensive terror, often tasked with guarding the other team’s best scorer. Since the Finals, Tucker signed a two-year contract with the Miami Heat, according to reporting in the Miami Herald.
Tucker’s father said his son continued to work hard to stay in the NBA, even when others doubted.
“He’s always been undersized and had the underdog mentality,” Anthony Tucker Sr. said. “Some players have a straight path to the top. P.J.’s career veered to the left, to the right, up and down. It’s a tough story but he was always convinced he could play at that level.”
To the championship Bucks team, Tucker Sr. said his son made a difference with his defense.
“He brought the toughness, the dog mentality,” Anthony Tucker Sr. said. “He’s going to make whoever he’s guarding take a tough shot. Maybe they put up 30, but they’ll have to work for every single point they got.”
Tucker Sr. said his son’s title ring shows Raleigh that anything is possible with hard work.
“It’s big for everybody,” he said. “To see someone from Southeast Raleigh, go to Enloe, that made it, that played in the NBA Finals and won, that’s big.”
