Gary Parrish

I have two children who are younger than Tyron Stokes.

And I've also covered basketball for a long time and I've seen young people come from, you know, every different place you can think of.

And sometimes life has been hard for them.

Yeah.

They're incredibly gifted, talented people at this very specific thing, but it does not mean they've had an easy life and it does not mean there hasn't been childhood trauma.

And it does not mean that there aren't things to overcome and, and,

You know, I think that Tyron Stokes and I think anybody who knows his story would would reasonably say that he's got some stuff to work through.

But the talent is in place and I'm not going to be skeptical out of hand.

of what he says.

If he says he knows he needs to be better and he wants to be, I'm going to take that at face value because I don't really know the young man.

I've been around him a little bit.

I have no reason to doubt him.

I'll take his words as sincere, but I also know, and this is even true in my own life,

I sincerely hope sometimes that I would handle this situation a little differently or that situation a little differently.

And it can still sometimes be a struggle for me.

I see it with my own kids.

I've seen it with basketball players.

There was a young man who, when I was a Memphis beat writer at the Commercial Appeal newspaper, who came to Memphis from New Jersey.

His name was Sean Banks.

He was a five-star-like prospect.