WALTHAM, Mass. — Larry Nance Jr. is just another kid looking to take up the family business. For him, that business is basketball.
Nance, a 6-foot-8 forward prospect who recently completed his senior season at Wyoming, is the son of longtime NBA player Larry Nance. The elder Nance played 13 seasons for the Phoenix Suns and Cleveland Cavaliers, earning three All-Star nods and winning the inaugural NBA Slam Dunk Contest in 1984.
His No. 22 hangs from the rafters at Cleveland’s Quicken Loans Arena.
Now, it’s Junior who’s chasing the NBA dream, and he has no problem with following in his father’s footsteps.
“I don’t think I necessarily would like to set myself apart from my dad,” the younger Nance said Wednesday after completing a pre-draft workout with the Boston Celtics. “I’ve never heard a bad word said about him. I’m proud to carry the name Larry Nance, and I’ll never give it up.”
Instead, Nance will be looking to set himself apart from the scores of fellow NBA prospects hoping one of the 60 names called June 25 in Brooklyn will be theirs. The 22-year-old won’t be a first-round pick like his father, who was taken 22nd overall in 1981, but with an impressive workout or two over these next few weeks, he has a good chance of landing with a team as an undrafted free agent, or perhaps even as a late second-rounder.
“I just plan on doing well what I do well,” Nance said. “I want to show them my athleticism — that should be off the charts every workout. My energy is the same way. I believe I was an underrated rebounder, so I’m trying to show them that, as well.
“… Talking to (my dad) about all this, he tells me the biggest things teams are looking for — what set him apart in the league, what I can do, what little things I can do that coaches are looking for. Body language, attitude — just be a good kid and kind of set yourself apart that way.”
The pre-draft process certainly has changed a quite a bit in the three-and-a-half decades since Nance’s father entered the NBA. He participated in just one offseason workout leading up to draft night, while his son says he has at least 12 or 13 scheduled.
“My dad, after he finished college, he took three weeks off, played in the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, took three more weeks off and got drafted,” Nance said. “So, it was literally one workout, and then teams chose. They didn’t even bring him in for workouts. So, he thinks all this is madness.”
Nance is happy even to be a part of said madness given how bleak his hoops hopes looked four years ago. He left high school a 6-foot-6, 180-pound teenager who, by his own admission, wasn’t particularly skilled at basketball and landed at Wyoming only because first-year coach Larry Shyatt was “looking for anybody at that point.”
“I wouldn’t even say under-recruited — I just wasn’t very good in high school,” Nance said. “Coming out — and I don’t look at anybody and (feel) upset because they didn’t recruit me, because genuinely, didn’t deserve it. I got to college and developed and grew three inches and put on 50 pounds. I loved Wyoming, and I wouldn’t take it back.”
Nance went on to have one of the most productive careers in Cowboys history — one capped by the program’s first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2002. His penchant for ferocious dunks even made earned him frequent appearances on highlight shows, though he knows he has a long way to go to catch his pops in that department.
“He was a spectacular athlete,” Nance said. “I’ve never been able to put my shoulders at the rim yet, (so when) I can do that, then I can call myself equal.”
Thumbnail photo via Troy Babbitt/USA TODAY Sports Images
