Shamorie Ponds

Shamorie Saequan Ponds was born in Brooklyn in 1998. The son of Shawn Ponds and Lamell Brightwell, Ponds' meal of choice is mac and cheese. Ponds lists his favorite NBA player as Steph Curry, and his favorite team as the San Antonio Spurs. Ponds blossomed into a superstar at Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, where he scored over 2,000 points in his four-year career. As a senior, he averaged 29 points, eight rebounds and six assists per game, and was named New York's 2015-16 Player of the Year by USA Today High School Sports. You can follow Shamorie Ponds on Twitter @ShamorieP and on Instagram @_Slicck_. Ponds spent three years at St. John's University, where he started all 96 games he played over the course of his storied collegiate career. As a freshman in 2016-17, he broke the St. John's freshman scoring record with 573 points, averaging 17.4 points and 4.4 rebounds per game. He was a unanimous selection to the Big East All-Freshman team that season, and was named Big East Freshman of the Week a league-leading five times. The next season, he was even better, improving in nearly every statistical category. Ponds compiled 21.6 points per game as a sophomore, catching 5.0 rebounds and dishing out 4.7 assists on an average outing. His scoring numbers led the entire Big East and ranked him 18th in the nation for offensive output. He followed that up with another sterling season in 2018-19, averaging 19.7 points and 5.1 assists in 33 games, all starts. By the time Ponds left school to enter the NBA, he'd scored 1,870 total points and dished out 413 career assists. Ponds went undrafted in the 2019 NBA Draft, and spent the summer playing Summer League basketball with the Houston Rockets.