At Hoop Summit, Jordan Lee represents Jason Kidd’s growing influence in AAU

STOCKTON, Calif. – Jordan Lee shall be very proud when he puts on his USA Basketball jersey against the World Team during Saturday’s Women’s Hoop Summit game. The prep guard also took great pride in wearing her Jason Kidd Select jersey when she won the AAU national title last yr.

During Hoop Summit, top American highschool seniors compete against top teenagers from world wide in games for girls and boys.

“Just being able to represent that name and have people acknowledge that when we walk around the room, we played with a certain type of aura that we represented,” Lee told ESPN’s Andscape from her home on April 7.

Kidd, head coach of the Dallas Mavericks and a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, became intrigued by the opportunity of starting a women’s AAU program after seeing the late Kobe Bryant and his connection to women’s basketball. Bryant, his daughter Gigi Bryant, and 7 others tragically died in a helicopter crash on January 26, 2020. After Bryant’s death, Kidd began a high-level girls’ AAU program that originally had its roots in Arizona before deciding to pursue it in his home Bay Area San Francisco. The program is coached and led by longtime basketball coach Armando Pazos.

“I thought Kobe did the right thing,” Kidd said before the Mavericks’ 104-100 loss to the Golden State Warriors on April 2. “And I comprehend it was related to Gigi. But I believed his brand and his light brought way more attention to the ladies’s game. With an accident. I believed to myself: How can I help with my little flashlight? How can I get attention? How can I help in the Bay Area?

“And so we went full speed ahead. We desired to mix these two things – Arizona and Bay – and it turned out that Bay was the one I made a decision to work with. Armando was participating in his show Golden City on the time. And it just turned out that he was the one I desired to do it with, and he handled it and did an incredible job.

Dallas Mavericks president Nico Harrison is a former Nike executive who worked closely with Kobe Bryant. Harrison remembers Kidd first contacting him after Bryant’s death about getting help from Nike with its AAU program for beginner girls.

“We sponsored them from the beginning. (Kidd) said, “I want to give back to girls basketball. The men are taken care of. We need more people supporting women. I told him we would help with anything you need. He just started building and he’s doing a great job,” Harrison said on April 2.

Lee was actually in eighth grade, as was Gigi Bryant, when she died. Lee said they played against one another several times in AAU tournaments. On the day of the helicopter crash that killed Kobe and Gigi Bryant, Lee and her AAU team were at a tournament on the Mamba Academy in Thousand Oaks, California, that the Bryants and other victims were attempting to get into.

After learning of the tragic news, Lee’s family and lots of in attendance gathered in groups to hope.

“It really hit me,” Lee said. “And my dad at the time had been coaching me for the last five years, so I just couldn’t imagine knowing their relationship and what our relationship was like as player and coach. I can’t even put into words how sad it was.”

Roderick Lee, Jordan’s father, said: “I said, ‘Look at this gym.’ There were probably 3,000 children of various ethnicities there. We all hugged each other and said, “We just must do higher for Kobe.” I told my team, “This is a man who gave his life to make the sport higher for you.” This is a source of energy for you that can take you to the subsequent level of basketball you would like to achieve. And man, we just hugged and cried.”

Jason Kidd Select has an under-17 team that features girls from Northern California, in addition to Oregon, Hawaii and Arizona. The program covers all hotels, flights, Nike clothing and footwear, and other vital costs. At the tip of the season, the ladies even received seven pairs of Nikes.

Such assistance is crucial for Lee, who stayed in a San Francisco-area hotel during rehearsal days as an alternative of creating a potentially two-hour commute from Stockton.

“They pay for flights, hotels, food and an end-of-season party,” Roderick Lee said. “We are going to Croatia in June. It’s just crazy. Nobody else does this.”

Kidd attended the Jason Kidd Select training in Oakland, California on April 1. It’s not unusual to see him at training and games, so Kidd tries to maintain in touch with Pazos for weekly updates. Kidd said it is also necessary for ladies in this system to satisfy with mentors pursuing careers outside of basketball through Jason Kidd Select.

“We try to give them everything we can and introduce them to people outside of basketball because not everyone is going to be a WNBA player,” Kidd said. “So using the resources here to introduce them to doctors, to judges, to teachers, to give them people to talk about or a career path to think about.”

Said Pazos: “I was hesitant to take the job at first because I had heard of so many athletes putting their names on programs and disappearing. He was told about getting scholarships for all the girls and committing himself fully to the program. I took a risk and left the Under Armor track and went with Jason and it was amazing.”

Under Lee’s leadership, Jason Kidd Select’s U17 team won its first national title on the Premier Independent Circuit last yr. As of 2020, all 26 eligible girls received Division I scholarships.

“At the beginning of 2023, we probably had three girls who didn’t receive any DI scholarships at all,” Jordan Lee said. “The way they played and shined with other girls who were at the same level and with the attention of multiple college coaches throughout the summer also helped. The baseline sideline was packed (with scouts). And judging by the exposure of Jason Kidd’s name and what Armando has built and developed, it has really resulted in scholarships.”

Kidd is incredibly happy with all of the scholarship recipients in such a short while. He was amazed that Lee was the primary in this system to be chosen to play in the Hoop Summit, McDonald’s All-America Game and Jordan Brand All-American Game. The next superstar on Jason Kidd Select’s horizon is San Jose Mitty High (Calif.) sophomore forward McKenna Woliczko, who’s ranked sixth in the 2026 class in accordance with ESPN and already has a scholarship offer from South Carolina.

“It’s amazing for us that within three years we’ll even have an All-American McDonald’s player,” Kidd said. “Having almost 30 young women in the primary league is something amazing. I just think it’s surreal. It’s a dream to have the ability to assist. But as you’ll be able to see, women’s sport is getting the highlight it deserves and hopefully it is going to proceed to get the highlight it deserves…

“(Lee) plays the right way. She works. She is the one who is not afraid of the moment.”

In addition to playing for Jason Kidd Select, Lee averaged 25.4 points, 10.8 rebounds, 4.0 assists and a couple of.9 steals for the St. Mary’s High School (Stockton, California) in the 2023–24 season. ESPN placed her on No. 9 prospect in the Class of 2024. He also has a 4.2 GPA and plans to attend dermatology school in Texas.

Lee said Kidd gave her some words of wisdom that helped her select Texas.

“Texas separated itself with its culture, my relationship with coach and what they could provide off the field,” Lee said.

Lee says she definitely plans to remain in touch with Kidd as she heads off to school with Jason Kidd Select. He said he gave her great advice on learn how to enjoy praise and “stay in the moment.” On the court, the NBA legend also provided suggestions that influenced her stellar play during Jason Kidd’s Select team’s visit to Dallas last summer.

“We probably spent at least an hour and a half not only watching film of some of the things that (Dallas Mavericks star) Luka (Doncic) does, but also analyzing my footwork and reading, shooting off the screen,” Lee said. “And this summer it was instrumental for me because the largest criticism I heard was that I needed to enhance my three-point shooting. And that was something I used to be just working on in the lab.

“And so we tousled some off-screen footwork, reading off the screen. Not only what my defender does when he goes down, in fact, but additionally what the midfielder and midfielder do.

While the boys Hoop Summit game was first played in 1995, the ladies Hoop Summit game shall be held on Saturday for less than the second time. Lee watched on TV as Southern Cal freshman phenom JuJu Watkins played in the primary girls Hoop Summit game last yr.

“To be able to represent my country and wear these letters on my chest, especially since it’s only the second annual competition, and see how well the girls who played in it last year did in their first year in the NCAA, to be a part of such an esteemed group, I’m delighted. Participating in this event was a no-brainer,” Lee said.