The Hendersons weigh in on how their family gym prepared Scoot for the NBA: ‘I had to create that culture in my household’

Top 3 Draft prospect Scoot Henderson is ready for the NBA, and the more you know about his family, the easier it is to understand why he was made to play basketball. The G League Ignite player is the second youngest out of seven siblings, who three of them thrived in the sport in their college years. 

The reason behind this is, they were all coached by their father Chris. “You know Joe Jackson, like the Jackson Five dad?” he asked ESPN over the phone. “Well, I’m kinda like the Joe Jackson of basketball. Less severe, but yeah.”

His mother Crystal has seen Scoot absorb their family’s basketball culture like a sponge, as she assures that they all share a healthy competitive nature between them. “Scoot was always a student of the game,” she said. “At two years old, he had to come with us to his older sister’s games, and he would watch, and it helped his IQ a lot. When Chris started training him, he already had picked up so much of the game just from watching at a young age.”

Take a look at ESPN’s complete special on the Henderson family and Scoot’s journey to the top:

His father then talked about the philosophy he instilled in his household. “And look, when we train, we’re not just training to train. I tell all my kids, if you’re not doing it to be the best, we’re not going to do it,” Chris said. “I didn’t want any second-place trophies in my house.

“If we went to a tournament and got a second-place trophy, it wasn’t coming home with us. I had to create that culture in my household. Either we are going to be the best or we’re just going to be everybody else.”

During the Covid-19 lockdown, Scoot dedicated his days to train in his family’s gym and let his father guide his drills

The G League Ignite star is well aware on his father’s impact on his life and career in sports. Even though he’s slowly become a trainer in demand, Chris didn’t even play basketball back in high school.

“He’s just a real student,” Scoot said about his father. “I’ll wake up, go upstairs, and then I see him just watch a lot of basketball. He got a little notepad that I seen him just working in. He’s a student in the game, it’s real scary how locked in he is — it be all night.”

Ever since his parents established a gym close to home, this became a hub to develop athletics for the Henderson siblings. This marked a turning point for teenage Scoot, who before this played a lot of football, but then only dedicated himself to basketball.

Henderson’s teammate John Jenkins, who also played in Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix, Washington and New York before joining the Ignite, reveals that Scoot gets better every day.

“His playmaking has taken a leap this year. He knows when to pick his spots, slow down, pick his spots, when to get someone else involved. All the things he needs in the league, he got better at,” he assured.