5xNBA champ Ron Harper celebrates son Dylan Harper's landmark deal with energy drink giant in 3 words
Five-time NBA champion Ron Harper, who won titles with the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers, is now the proud father of one of the best young players in the country. While this summer's NBA Draft is expected to be the Cooper Flagg sweepstakes, Harper's son, Dylan Harper, is likely to go within the top three.
Ahead of his upcoming season at Rutgers, Dylan Harper has signed an NIL deal with Red Bull, making him the first male college basketball player to sign with the brand. After the news was broken by Boardroom TV's Nick DePaula, the five-time NBA champ took to social media to react.
Along with sharing a link to the Instagram post from Boardroom sharing the news, Ron Harper simply wrote:
"Making moves son"
The link shared by Ron Harper, which connects to an Instagram post, also notably includes a quote from Dylan Harper from his interview with DePaula. In it, the oversized guard reflected on his deal with Red Bull:
“It’s crazy to know that I’ve gotten this opportunity to be in the position to be the first college player. Looking back on all of the hard work I’ve done, it’s really starting to pay off, and I’m going to keep on going.”
"Who smoke at 6:30am?" Ron Harper recalls being shocked while training with Michael Jordan
Drafted in 1986, just two years after Michael Jordan, Ron Harper spent the first four seasons of his career with the Cleveland Cavaliers before joining the LA Clippers for five seasons.
Then, heading into the 1994-95 season, Harper signed a deal with the Chicago Bulls after Michael Jordan's first retirement. When Jordan eventually came back after a stint in minor-league baseball, he told Ron Harper that the two were going to work out together.
While Harper had played in 75+ games for four straight seasons, he was shocked to learn that MJ began training at 6:30 AM after a morning coffee and cigar. As he told his former teammate Stacey King on the latest episode of his "Gimme the Hot Sauce Podcast:"
"He didn't ask me. He told me, 'We gonna start training'. I'm like, 'Ok, cool'. We training 6:30 (am), I thought it was 6:30 in the afternoon. I'm like, 'Something wrong with this kid. I'm in third dream at that time.
"I go downstairs, I see Tim [Grover] over there … I'm yawning, sleep in my eyes. J walked down with a cup of coffee and a cigar in his mouth. I said, 'Who smoke at 6:30 AM?'"
As Harper went on to explain, heading into his training sessions with Jordan, he felt as though he was in pretty good shape. However, he quickly realized after seeing how strong MJ was that he had to step things up.
MJ challenged him to get his strength and conditioning up to where it needed to be within two weeks, and the rest is history.