EXCLUSIVE: Nassir Little on Jerami Grant, the Blazers' Rookies and His Foundation

More from our extended conversation with Nassir Little ahead of a pivotal fourth season.

Last week, I published a story on Nassir Little. He's bullish on his outlook for his fourth season, and on the moves the Trail Blazers have made this summer.

When we met for coffee near the Blazers' practice facility in Tualatin after one of Little's recent workout sessions, we talked for nearly an hour. That means there was way more stuff than I could use in the story I wrote last week, which mostly covered the "news" parts of what we talked about—his rehab and recovery from the shoulder and abdominal surgeries, goals for the coming season, thoughts about a potential contract extension and his assessment of the Blazers' offseason moves.

This is my site and I can do whatever I want as far as a word count, but I'm fully aware that a 10,000-word story would be too much to ask most people to hang in there for, especially in the dead part of the offseason that we're in now.

With that said, it was a great conversation that covered a lot of different topics that I think fans would be interested in reading about. Little is a smart and thoughtful guy with a wide variety of interests who cares about the people around him. We had talked here and there during the first part of his rookie season in 2019-20 before COVID hit, but it's been hard for us in the media to develop real relationships with the players we cover over the past two years because of the restrictions on in-person access. This kind of extended sit-down interview has been basically impossible in that time without involving Zoom, which is no substitute for just sitting at a table with someone and having a real face-to-face conversation like we did last week.

Among the things we talked about: Little's thoughts on some of the Blazers' offseason moves, including their two draft picks and the trade for Jerami Grant; his recovery from the same abdominal surgery Damian Lillard suffered last season, which completely escaped my notice at the time; and the work he does with the Nassir S. Little Youth Foundation.

(The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.)

On his recovery from the same abdominal surgery that sidelined Damian Lillard

Sean Highkin: Has your family come out here at all this offseason?

Nassir Little: "They haven't been out here. My sister came out to Philly, because I also got the abdomen surgery."

SH: The same one Dame had?

NL: "Yeah."

SH: How was that for you?

NL: "Playing on it, you mean, or the surgery?"

SH: I vaguely remember getting the press release about a core muscle surgery, but it was after you'd already had the shoulder surgery and they said you'd still be ready for camp so I didn't give it much thought at the time. You had the same ab injury Dame did?

NL: "So there's muscles in your pelvic area, your groin, pelvis, adductors. And it was basically like, you tore the muscle in that area. I didn't tear it all the way. It was a minor tear, which is why it was hard to find. But it's painful. When you tear it, it messes with the mechanisms of all the muscles, so it causes a whole bunch of tightness and weakness in your adductors. It's something that you can play through. The problem is, when I had it, it kind of came out of nowhere. Or it felt like that. And when it first happened, it just felt like I was a little sore. My minutes were up, so maybe I'm just a little sore. And then after a couple weeks, I'm like, 'OK, it's still sore, this is weird.' But I'm playing alright. Then after a month, I was like, 'OK, it's still hurting, but I'm still doing my thing.' After a while, you just get used to playing with it. But when you're not playing, you're just lifting your legs up, it's painful. Coughing, sneezing, laughing, all that was excruciating. But I'd go get an MRI and they wouldn't find anything. So it was one of those things where they're not seeing anything, but obviously I know something's wrong.

"Dame helped me with my situation. His situation was different from mine because they were really on top of it because it had gotten so bad. But I just kind of rode that wave. I talked to him about it and he said, 'It sounds like you have what I have.' So I just rode his wave. I went to his doctors, I did the same rehab program he did, all that stuff. And then once I got Philly, went to Dr. Myers, they have a special protocol for the MRIs. Gary Payton had it, too. It's weird we've all had this same thing. But when I got there, they saw the tear. That was when my sister came out there to help me, because I couldn't really walk around. When I got the shoulder [surgery], I was in Florida, so they didn't have to come to Portland. By the time I got to Portland, I was good by myself. I just had the sling and my shoulder was a little bit better. I was gone for a month."

SH: With the shoulder, at least you can still walk.

NL: "Yeah. And after about three or four weeks, your shoulder still kind of hurts, but you can live your life. You can drive. It wasn't debilitating. But with that [abdomen] surgery, it's fast, but that first week is hard, just walking around and all that stuff."

SH: What was the rehab like for the ab injury?

NL: "The rehab for that was fast. After three weeks, there was no pain walking around. Just chilling. After four weeks, I'm running. And then after five or six weeks, I'm working out regularly. And then eight weeks, which was mid-to-late July, it was just whatever. Running, dunking. And now after I got that surgery, it hasn't even been three months yet, and I'm explosive and all that stuff."

SH: It's probably good that you had that surgery while you were also recovering from the shoulder, so you could address both at the same time and not have to miss even more time.

NL: "I got that surgery three months after the shoulder surgery. And that's literally what the plan was as soon as I hurt my shoulder. When I hurt my shoulder, we started mapping the plan for the abdomen stuff. There was no point in doing it super-early. They didn't want me to get one surgery in February and then another one in March. They wanted the shoulder to kind of get better before focusing on something else."

SH: Having gone through it, is it kind of unbelievable to you that Dame played with that injury for three years?

NL: "Yeah. I only had it for seven months. So playing through it for three years is insane. Especially at the level of … my rookie year and my second year, he was playing out of this world. And his bar is so high that even last year, he was averaging 20 or 23, something like that, and for his standard, that's not good enough. And I'm like, 'I would love to average that.' That would be insane if I could average that. But for him, he's such a great player that even his quote-unquote 'bad years' are other guys' career highs. For him to even do that, I can't explain it to someone who's never been through it, but it hurts. Every movement that you do, it hurts. Because it's basketball. Everything is through your legs. You're running, you're jumping, you're expected to play defense. He's shooting at that volume. Everything relies on your speed, strength and quickness. And that muscle takes away a lot of that. It's harder to do that type of stuff."

@nassir (Instagram)

On his basketball camp, youth foundation and desire to help kids pursue their passions

SH: You've been out here working out most of the summer, but I know you were back home in Orlando recently for your youth camp. How long have you been doing that?

NL: "I've been doing it for the last two years. This year was great. Great turnout. A lot of kids. I got a lot of positive messages from the parents, and the kids themselves. That's what means the most to me. To have a kid come up to me and say, 'Thank you,' it means a lot to me. It just touches me, bro. I love giving back. I'm really interactive with the kids. I'm in the drills with them, diving, doing all kinds of stuff."

SH: How old are the kids?

NL: "I have two days. The first day is 7-10, the second day is 11-14. The previous year, it was all high-school kids. But I wanted it to be younger this year, because in high school, that's when you really develop. Guys are really elite. If there's a camp for high-school kids, and you take me at 18 years old, and then there are freshmen who just want to go to an NBA camp. But then you have these elite five-star Division I prospects. The previous year, it was like that and there were legitimate high-major guys playing in it. I was like, if I'm gonna do that type of stuff, it has to be like Dame's [Formula Zero] camp. He had an actual elite camp. I wanted my camp to be more for the kids to enjoy themselves, learn about the game, get introduced to being active, stuff like that. I didn't want it to be about kids trying to get write-ups. You know what I'm saying?"

SH: Totally. It's easier to avoid all of that stuff when you focus on the younger kids.

NL: "Exactly. It has nothing to do with a status or a ranking or a write-up. It's just about getting out there, being active, having fun. Building a community. And I felt like the year before, it was shifted towards a different gear that I didn't really plan on it being. There were local outlets that wanted to come cover the camp because there's this ranked kid from Florida or that ranked kid from Florida coming. And I'm like, 'That's not what it's about.' I'm not trying to have mixtapes from my camp. That's not what I'm trying to do here. That's why I changed it up and decreased the skill gap, just by lowering the ages of the kids and building that community. I think it's good for kids to see guys come back to their cities and be active and be in the community and showing them that we're regular. They think that we're … I don't know what they think."

SH: 'He's in the NBA, he makes millions…'

NL: "Yeah. 'He does something that we don't do.' But in reality, outside of working hard and taking care of my body, I'm chilling. I'm listening to music, there's some stuff that everybody does that people think we don't do, so I'm just trying to show them, you can go listen to music, dance, be happy."

SH: What are you listening to?

NL: "I listen to all kinds of stuff. Drake, Lil Baby, Frank Sinatra, a whole bunch of stuff. But just showing them that side of me just shows them that we're regular people and I've been in their shoes. Getting on the same level with them. Taking myself off the pedestal that I feel like other people put athletes on. That's what's most important to me. I was just a counselor at the camp helping with the drills, rebounding, passing out lunch to the kids. My goal is to eventually start having free camps. This year, my camp was $25. There are a lot of kids who aren't that fortunate to have the money to pay X amount of dollars for a camp. So I made it cheap. We also had a lot of people donate or buy tickets for kids and sponsor kids, so anybody that wanted to go was able to go. And everything we do get, goes right back into my foundation which helps more kids. So it's just a beautiful situation."

SH: What does your foundation focus on, mainly?

NL: "We basically aid kids who struggle with extracurricular activities, because it's expensive. If you have AAU travel fees, we cover that. If there's kids that want to go on a study-abroad trip and it costs X amount of dollars, we cover that. Kids who need laptops for visual arts. Music lessons. Acting lessons. Singing lessons. Dancing lessons. What we do is help kids develop that part of themselves. Me personally, I knew a lot of kids growing up where they couldn't do those things because they couldn't afford it. I don't ever want that to be the reason why you weren't able to achieve what you wanted to achieve. I sponsored a girls' AAU team last year, and one of the girls came up to me and was like, 'I got a scholarship and I wouldn't have been able to play if it wasn't for you.' That changed my life, bro."

SH: Do you want kids of your own someday?

NL: "I do. Someday. Hopefully no time soon. I definitely want to establish myself first and get situated. But that's my goal. I love kids. I love seeing their youth. I don't want to say they have no worries, but how free they live is inspiring."

Photo courtesy of Nassir S. Little Youth Foundation

On the Blazers' two rookies

SH: What did you think of Jabari Walker in Summer League?

NL: "I'm a fan of Jabari. I think he's really good. I'd actually seen him, because I watch a lot of college basketball. So I was watching a game and it was Colorado playing somebody, and he just stood out. He wasn't even scoring a bunch of points, but I could just tell he was a good player. And then the way he played at Summer League, I was super-impressed. It was better than I even thought. I knew he was good, because when Joe [Cronin] drafted him, I called Joe and said, 'Bro, Jabari's good. You got a good one.' And then the way he played at Summer League, he didn't seem rushed. He seemed really comfortable."

SH: We talked to Jabari a lot in Vegas and I was really impressed by his self-awareness in knowing that he's going to have to do things besides score to stick in the league and earn minutes. He said his dad [former NBA player Samaki Walker] taught him at a young age that being a 'role player' is actually not an insult.

NL: "Being a role player isn't an insult at all, bro. We have a chance to make a lot of money as role players. Everybody is a role player, though. We just have different roles. That's what people get misconstrued. Dame has a role. He's a role player. His role is huge, but it's still … we need him to do that because nobody else can do that. Everybody has things they can do. That's the whole point of teams. Everybody in the NBA has something that they're elite at. You may not be the best shooter but you may be a great rebounder or an elite defender. There's stuff that Dame does that I can't do, and there's stuff I can do that he can't. That's why you have a team. We've got all these pieces, everyone does their little part, and it comes together and that's when you have a dynamic team. I think Jabari has done a really good job of embracing that. I can see how that can translate into real NBA minutes. Some guys will go off in Summer League and you're not gonna do that when you're playing with De'Aaron Fox or whatever the case may be. But the way Jabari played, he played really well and it seemed like it would fit among other high-caliber players."

SH: What about Shaedon Sharpe? Did you know much about him when you guys drafted him?

NL: "Not really. I remember hearing about him a little bit. But as I've gotten older, I'm not really in touch with the high-school scene anymore. Those first couple of years out, I still knew everyone because guys like Ant Edwards and Evan Mobley were in high school while I was in high school. But now I'm getting to the point where when I was in high school, these kids were in sixth or seventh grade, so I don't even know who they are. But I had heard about [Sharpe] and I was talking to my friend who told me that his little brother played against him, and he was like, 'Yeah, he's the real deal. He's nice.' But I had never really seen him play before we drafted him. I did some research on him, just trying to figure out what kind of player he was. But from what I've heard, he's good. He can shoot, he's athletic. I think he'll be good. He seems talented. But I haven't really seen him yet."

On Jerami Grant buying his jersey number

SH: Have you gotten to connect with Jerami Grant much since the trade?

NL: "Yeah, a little bit. We had an exchange about the number 9."

SH: I forgot about that! I hope you got something from him for it.

NL: "Yeah."

SH: What did he give you?

NL: "I ain't gonna speak on that. But we came to an agreement. He hit me up, we negotiated and we came to a middle ground."

SH: Was 9 a number that had significance to you?

NL: "Nah."

SH: Why'd you pick that number when you were drafted?

NL: "I wanted 5 or 10 and they were both taken. So I just got 9. It begins with an N, my name begins with an N."

SH: What are 5 and 10?

NL: "5 wasn't really much significance, but one of my best friends from high school, he wore 5 in high school, so when we got to college, we switched numbers. I was 10 in high school, he was 5. So when we got to college, I was 5, he was 10. I wanted to keep that going and wear 5, but Rodney Hood had it. But the thing is, Jake Layman had 10 when I got drafted, and they traded him right after. But you have to pick your number right away. So as soon as I picked my number, they traded him the next day, so I couldn't get it. They had already printed all the stuff, so to change it would have been too much. At that point, it wasn't really a big deal. I didn't really care. I'm not super-big on the number stuff."

SH: But you still made him pay for 9. That's good negotiating.

NL: "It's a bit of an inconvenience to switch your number. I've got people with No. 9 jerseys of mine. At the crib, I've got my 9 jersey. So it's a little inconvenient for me to change my number. So I think an agreement was fair."

SH: What about the on-court fit with you and Jerami? How do you think you'll be together?

NL: "I think we'll be great. I think it will be a lot of pressure for the defense. Both sides, honestly. We're both hyper-athletic, skilled, good defenders. The combo there will be very dynamic. I think it will be a problem. I'm excited for that. I've always been a fan of Jerami's game. Even before he got to the level he's at now. Just the way he impacted the game. I remember we played Denver my rookie year, and he'd come in, play like 10 minutes, and just impact the game. Hit a three, block something, get a dunk, run down and get a steal. I've always been a fan of his game so I'm excited to have a chance to play with him."

SH: It's going to be interesting to see how he transitions away from being the first scoring option in Detroit to playing a supporting role like he did in Denver and Oklahoma City.

NL: "He's gonna succeed, though, because Ant and Dame aren't selfish players. If you watch them, they make the right play 90 percent of the time. He's gonna eat, just off the attention they get. I would even argue that he'll have easier success. In Detroit, he's the guy, everything is locked in on him. But we've got so many pieces, he'll be able to eat just off that alone. And we've got guys making plays, everybody is skilled enough to make a play, from 1 through 5, especially with Nurk. I think he'll have a chance to be super-successful and still be able to do whatever he feels like he needs to do."