New Orleans Pelicans Bryce Dejean-Jones tragically passes away

Bryce Dejean-Jones’ journey through adversity was highlighted by his time playing basketball on the New Orleans Pelicans.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget just how quickly things can be taken away.

Bryce Dejean-Jones has tragically passed away. The details are not important. What it means to the New Orleans Pelicans is not important. What is important is that a young man lost his life. A young man that had a promising career ahead of him. It’s tough to even write this after all I’ve seen Bryce go through in his basketball career.

In the 2013-2014 season, I covered the University of Nevada-Las Vegas college basketball team. Bryce was on that team. I will never forget Dejean-Jones. On a team full of talent and promise, it seemed like his attitude got in the way of his potential.

UNLV had an NCAA Tournament level team. They had the talent. Dejean-Jones, especially, had the kind of talent to make it. However, his focus wasn’t there. He wanted to shoot at all costs. He wanted to make every play. He wanted the ball in his hands. It didn’t help his team win games.

I remember thinking to myself, “This guy is never going to make it” as I sat in the press conference after a loss. I listened to his words murmur as his mind seemed to drift to somewhere else. He wasn’t focused. He wasn’t driven, but the talent was there.

Unfortunately, it felt like he had not grown up. While talking to him at UNLV, I got to ask him about how the game felt and how he had yet to find his groove. But, to be honest, who has found it at that age? He was still just a kid.

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Still, many at UNLV felt he’d never find that maturity, and even more jumped ship when he left the college team after locker room incidents. After leaving college, I never thought I’d hear the name again. The doubters filled Dejean-Jones’ world. It would’ve been understandable if he never made it from there. But, something about him never gave up. He was a fighter.

He joined Iowa State the next year and posted respectable numbers. Even more so, his attitude seemed to change under Fred Holberg. I didn’t witness it until he overcame his next adversity. Even after a strong season, Dejean-Jones went undrafted. Of the sixty picks in the draft, none ended up being Bryce. So, he went to Summer League to play for the New Orleans Pelicans.

“Oh no. Here we go again” were my exact words when I saw him on the roster. Yet, watching him on the Pelicans was a different experience. He still shot the ball a lot. However, he was so much more focused on the game. There was no more trotting back on defense. No more standing around when he did not have the ball. He fought through every possession. To put it simply, he grew up.

However, yet another setback would find Dejean-Jones. Even with questions at the small forward position, the Pelicans passed on his services. And, yet again, Dejean-Jones fought through it. He ended up on the Iowa Stampede of the D-League. Once again, his numbers were respectable. More so, his new, positive attitude took him from being a player with talent to a player with experience and leadership qualities.

He became more than just a player. He became a man with a story of mistakes that he learned from. It would be easy to quit on a dream based on his past, but he didn’t. He kept playing. Fighting. Waiting for his chance. And, after all the waiting, it came. In January, a month into his time with the Stampede, he was signed to the Pelicans for 10-days. Another chance. Another hope. This time, he earned his spot.

Again, I felt myself accustomed to being worried about him. Every time I had watched him ball in the past, there had been a lack of complete control to his game. However, it showed in the few games he had in New Orleans.

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In his first start on January 28th, he put up 14 points, two rebounds, two steals and a block. In a game later in the season, he put up 17 points and nine rebounds against the Los Angeles Lakers. More so than the numbers, he showed everything he fought through in the years he had been turned down. He gave it everything.

I remember watching the game against the Lakers. It still felt weird to be watching him in the NBA after saying he would never get out of UNLV. I doubted him. And yet, there I was watching him put up a fantastic game. I went from despising the game of a youngster in college to smiling at him fight through and go after every loose ball on a struggling Pelicans team.

That’s what his story became. The story of a fighter. Someone who never gave up. Someone who took mistakes and turned them into learning experiences. Someone who could take the hardships of being rejected and press on until he made his dream a reality. His play earned him a three-year contract during the season. He had achieved his goal.

That’s what makes this day so tragic. Death is a scary thing to think about when it happens. This is not about the Pelicans losing a player. This is a young man, who fought for everything to make his dream a reality, finally making it and having it cut so short. This is a man who had a daughter and is now gone. The basketball world lost a great man and fighter.

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Being one of the first players I ever covered, the story of Bryce Dejean-Jones has awed me as a basketball fan and a writer. He’s a kid that was easy to give up on, yet fought his way through it to make himself an NBA player. He went from the player I detested the most at UNLV to one of the players I rooted whole-heartedly for on the New Orleans Pelicans. He taught those that watched him to never give up. As a person who loves basketball, it was a great honor to watch him play and grow through the years. A great man has lost his life way too soon. Rest In Peace Bryce.