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MARIETTA, Ga. — On a recent Sunday evening, Crystal Henderson sat down on the first row of a bleacher inside her family’s Next Play 360° gym and patiently waited for a surprise. Unbeknown to most of the 60 teenagers who had been practicing inside the four-court facility, her older brother Scoot Henderson, the uber-athletic star guard for G League Ignite, would be greeting them. Unlike the other players there, she knew he was coming. So instead of gathering at midcourt, Crystal — who her family and friends call Moochie — watched from a baseline across the floor as teens gushed over Scoot’s arrival.
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Scoot, 19, has drawn comparisons to Allen Iverson, Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook and is an expected No. 2 pick in the upcoming NBA Draft. Two years ago, as a 17-year-old, he became the youngest American player to ever turn professional. But to Moochie, Scoot is just her brother, 18 months her senior, who she taught to tie his shoes and spell his birth name, Sterling.
To Scoot, Moochie is “definitely the most skilled” Henderson. “The best shooter in the family is her,” he says.
Though she might be 5-foot-6 and 17 years old, Moochie surpassed Scoot as Kell High School’s all-time leading scorer during her junior year, amassing more than 2,300 points and counting. She’s been named to Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s first-team in each of her high school seasons. According to PrepGirlsHoops, Moochie is also the No. 4 high school player in the state of Georgia.
In a family where basketball is the sun, everything and everyone revolving around it, the two youngest members of the seven-sibling Henderson family strike a difference in just the opportunities that are available to either of them.
Scoot was 15 when he received his first professional offer, from a team in China. He could have played for a number of power conference college teams and received hefty NIL deals. Instead, he became a 17-year-old pro in 2021 while awaiting draft eligibility. Moochie, a senior, meanwhile, has had just one viable route: college. She is still deciding where to suit up after receiving interest from South Carolina, Ole Miss, Coastal Carolina and Georgia State.
Even before his first official NBA game, Scoot has already achieved acclaim for his nontraditional path. Moochie, too, is looking to leave her mark on a landscape overdue for some kind of disruption. “Be the face of something,” she says. She isn’t sure exactly what trace she’ll leave. She’s been short on alternatives, yet she isn’t short on self-belief.
When Moochie was a toddler, her parents made a rule that her older siblings couldn’t block her shot. Their dad Chris, who was the first coach for all seven of them and is still a basketball trainer, says it allowed her to build confidence, and not be discouraged from pursuing the family pastime.
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When she was around 2, Chris says, Moochie started dribbling a full-size basketball with one hand. “She used to freak people out,” he remembers of her early abilities. At 3, with the on-court family restriction in place, Moochie could already go between the legs and behind the back, says her mom, also named Crystal Henderson. She had dedication and passion. Moochie sometimes also teetered on getting kicked out of her sisters’ games. “That’s a foul, ref,” she would yell out — the preschooler’s piercing voice attracting glares from those around her.
The on-court family rules started going away by the time Moochie was 6, but it wasn’t until a winter weekend when she was in seventh grade that Moochie realized she was more prolific than even she had thought. In a matchup against girls a year older, she started raining 3s on her opponent. So much so that at halftime, Chris, who was coaching, learned she had already passed her season scoring average. “Yo, Mooch, you got 30,” he told her.
“I do?” she responded.
“Yes, let’s go get 50,” he replied.
She kept scoring from all three levels. Two-dribble pull-ups from the volleyball line. Floaters in the lane. “It was like the basket was as big as the damn ocean,” Chris says.
Moochie had 50 by the end of the third quarter and finished with 64 points. “Everybody’s not doing that,” older sister Diamond says. In fact, no Henderson sibling had ever crossed the sexagenarian plateau before. She didn’t rest. One of their family mottos is “play hard or don’t play.” So instead, the outburst only pushed her to train harder.
In the years since, Moochie has engaged in regular workouts with Chris. She settled on wearing No. 30, an homage to Stephen Curry, who she sees herself playing like. Her sisters, who sometimes train with her as well, say they wish they could have been her formal on-court teammate. Competing head-to-head with her NBA-bound brother additionally improved her ability to battle stronger players.
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But while Scoot went off to Henderson, Nevada to join Ignite, Moochie had to play at home.
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“Her and Scoot remind me of Cheryl Miller and Reggie Miller,” Diamond says.
Scoot wants to ensure that Moochie is known for being far more than just his little sister. “That’s hella important, honestly,” he says. “She’s way bigger than that. She’s way bigger than me.” That’s why in one of his recent business meetings, he stated her NIL possibilities were a priority for him. And why he made sure she got on-air at the end of a recent in-person appearance on NBA TV. And why in a joint press conference after their recent high school jersey retirement ceremony, Scoot, largely unprompted, praised her five different times.
Despite her youth, Moochie is advising the girls team that is part of her brother’s first-year grassroots program, S.H.E. (Scoot Henderson Elite). By launching it, the family hopes to put a future generation of female players on a platform where they can showcase their talents, Diamond says. She was once in their shoes, playing at Tennessee Tech and Syracuse, and so too were her other sisters, China and Onyx, both of whom played at Cal State Fullerton.
In the hour leading up to Scoot’s surprise appearance Sunday at the family-owned gym, Chris, Diamond and Onyx ran the S.H.E. team through a variety of dribbling drills. They worked with players on proper technique after securing defensive rebounds. It helps to have a home gym where the girls are always welcomed to workout. In 2018, the family acquired their Next Play space. For the Hendersons, it doubles as both a place to get up shots and to lounge.
Moochie Henderson learned some moves from her brother Scoot Henderson. But he says she’s the better shooter. (Adam Hagy / NBAE via Getty Images)Just over 20 miles southeast of the Henderson’s gym is the home of Overtime Elite, a new professional basketball league for boys ages 16 to 20. A handful of participants are shooting around on one of the two NBA regulation-sized practice courts inside its 103,000 square-foot facility in Midtown Atlanta on a Tuesday morning. The majority, though, are scattered throughout OTE’s property, which houses a state-of-the art weight room and a recently renovated 1,300-seat arena as well as classrooms.
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Overtime, the social media brand that developed a huge following after sharing Zion Williamson and LaMelo Ball’s high school highlights, launched OTE in 2021. In doing so it created a place for male athletes to prepare for their next basketball opportunity while taking part in a league of their own. Zack Weiner, the president and co-founder of Overtime, says through conversations with athletes and their families, three pillars emerged: basketball development, economic empowerment and education, especially about applicable life skills like financial literacy.
More generally, Weiner says, “empowerment can mean a lot of different things.” But for OTE, he explains, “a big part of empowerment is choice and optionality.” Ignite and OTE are not direct competitors. However, both have shaken up the traditional path for a generation of male players by providing practical college alternatives.
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Additional choice in the women’s game, Weiner says, “would be, and will be, a positive thing.” At least one possible new course could be on the horizon. Last May, OTE hosted a women’s basketball takeover, where college stars Haley Jones, Paige Bueckers, Aliyah Boston and Zia Cooke coached and broadcasted some of the nation’s top high school girls’ games as part of a two-day event. Could the company continue growing their efforts in the space? “We’re actively working on continuing and expanding our efforts in women’s sports, particularly around the next generation of women’s athletes,” Weiner says.
For right now, though, choices are limited for girls like Moochie. The Hendersons have studied different processes for youth players, and watched the basketball industry change from when Diamond, now 31, was being recruited to when Scoot and Moochie were in high school. Yet there are no known present and viable alternatives for girls other than playing in college. As a result, Moochie says she didn’t look into other options.
There are occasional examples of collegiate women’s basketball players taking nontraditional routes to the WNBA. Guard Epiphanny Prince, for instance, left Rutgers after her junior season in 2009 to play professionally in Russia and Turkey. But the economics of the WNBA, and its current set-up in terms of both size and draft regulations make cases like Prince’s extremely rare. Diamond says the family has “heated debates” about it. “It’s kinda crazy how men can just go a year into college,” but that women aren’t able to, Moochie says.
Adds Scoot: “I just want to see it succeed, to see it grow. … I feel like the WNBA should probably have a G League, or have more teams.”
Moochie has always been a talker. “Early on, it was like this girl would not be quiet,” Diamond says. “Very bossy to her brothers,” Crystal adds. On the court, she engages in a different kind of dialogue, however, telling the voices in her head to calm down and to “keep your head up.” Each 3-pointer provides a sense of confidence and relief. If her jumper isn’t falling, she’ll showcase her crafty playmaking ability, slithering around defenders to find teammates by the basket or get her floater off. She might be undersized, but when she excels, “it’s like the big payback for people underestimating her,” Crystal says.
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Plus, her arsenal has a few other tricks. With just over a minute to play until halftime in Kell’s Jan. 31 matchup against Chattahoochee High School, Moochie stood on the baseline, ready to inbound the basketball. She noticed her defender’s back fully turned toward her and elected to throw a pass off her, instead of to a teammate. Moochie caught her own toss and scored a layup.
Scoot and the rest of the Henderson family were there not only to watch Moochie finish an eventual 64-36 win with a game-high 25 points but also for the festivities that followed: a jersey retirement ceremony for the two youngest Henderson siblings.
Dozens of spectators in the gym wore specially made “KHS Basketball” T-shirts with Henderson “0” and Henderson “30” on the back of it to mark the occasion. A highlight reel featuring Moochie’s deep 3s and crafty assists and Scoot’s countless powerful high school dunks aired afterward. Scoot reacted more to watching his sister’s tape than his own.
They sat alongside their parents as balloon floats with their names and numbers were rolled out, their accolades were read aloud and banners to be hung in the school’s rafters were unveiled. “I want her to be up there with me,” Scoot says. “My whole family, I want them to come up with me.”
In that vein, making her family proud is a key motivator for Moochie. “They put so much effort and energy into me, and my game,” she says. “You can’t not go do it.” Her sisters taught her to “be confident in everything you do,” in both work and in knowing one’s worth. Her mom believes that as she moves forward, no matter what her basketball future holds, she’ll be true to herself, “doing her own thing, her own niche.”
She may just have to clear the road to get there.
(Top photo: Adam Hagy / NBAE via Getty Images)
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