New Orleans Pelicans Pixels: Bryce Dejean-Jones has grown up
By Rick Stone
New Orleans Pelicans’ guard Bryce Dejean-Jones has grown up from his days in college basketball at UNLV and Iowa State to become a legit NBA player, similar to Riku from the Kingdom Hearts series.
It’s not all advanced stats and critiques of the front office here at Pelican Debrief. Nope. We can have fun, too. Pelicans Pixels is a series in which the writers at Pelican Debrief make a humorous comparison between a video character and a Pelicans players. Why did we do this? No particular reason; we’re just big kids at heart. We hope you enjoy reading Pelicans Pixels as much as we enjoyed writing the series.
The story of Bryce Dejean-Jones‘ path to the NBA is quite interesting. Out of High School, Dejean-Jones played through three different colleges in his four year path. One of which was a school that I myself attended during his time playing. The University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Unfortunately for him, the reviews of his play and his attitude as a Running Rebel were poor.
Dejean-Jones was known for his poor shot selection and desire to score the basketball, even if the shots he was taking were hurting his team. While his play on the court was bad, his attitude off the court was even worse.
Bryce displayed poor body language countless times during UNLV’s struggles and got involved in multiple “altercations” during his time. The first earned him a one-game suspension for a “locker room blowout”. The second led to the team announcing he would not remain at UNLV for the upcoming season.
From there, Dejean-Jones went to Iowa State for his final college season. He played fairly well under current Chicago Bulls coach Fred Hoiberg. And as he moved into the NBA and onto the New Orleans Pelicans late into this season, something about him seemed to change.
Unlike his time at UNLV, Dejean-Jones looked humbled and emotionally controlled. Not only that, his game look refined. His shot selection was much improved and his effort on every play showed. The dream of a life in the NBA looks like it mean something for BDJ. He grew up and learned from his mistakes to become a better player. That’s tough. It’s similar to the struggles Riku went through from the Kingdom Hearts series.
In the Kingdom Hearts series, you play a protagonist named Sora. He is traveling around different worlds such as The Deep Jungle from the movie “Tarzan” and Halloween Town from “The Nightmare Before Christmas” in search of your friends Riku and Kairi. Sora, Riku and Kairi are all young, around the age of 13-15. And while Kairi is a sweet girl, Riku is given a much darker image in the first game.
Throughout the first game, Sora is trying to find Kairi and Riku both. However, Riku is set in his mind that Sora is against him and it is up to Riku alone to protect her. With how cool a character he looks, his personality in the first game is one of a jerk who treats his friend horribly. He becomes jealous of Sora’s ability to use the “keyblade”, which is the weapon in the game. He turns to “darkness”, which is seen as the bad side in the game, to help him attempt to beat Sora.
However as the series progresses, Riku begins to feel sorrow for his decisions in the first game. He begins his quest to help Sora once again, no longer letting his darkness or his jealousy get the better of him. It’s this transformation throughout the series from what was a friend gone bad in the first game, into a grown young man who sees the better of his mistakes and makes ammends.
The same is for Bryce Dejean-Jones. Both their mistakes could have cost them dearly in retrospect. For Riku, it could have meant his soul. For Bryce, it could have been his chance at living his dream of playing in the NBA. These guys, at first, seem like they’re out of control kids who can not understand the reprocussions of their mistakes. Now, they both have a great following from their hard work and have put their past behind them.
Next: New Orleans Pelicans Pixels: Eric Gordon is frustrating
It’s been quite a journey for Bryce Dejean-Jones from college to the New Orleans Pelicans. Just the same for the journey Riku goes through in Kingdom Hearts. People make mistakes. It comes down to learning from those mistakes and taking that knowledge to help you in the future. Bryce and Riku have done that well. Because of that, Dejean-Jones has a few years on the New Orleans Pelicans to set himself up for a successful career in professional basketball.