Greatness sure runs in the veins!
WNBA legend Pamela McGee, 57 and son
JaVale McGee, 32 are the first mother-son duo to both play professional basketball.
Pamela McGee, a 2012 Basketball Hall of Famer, two-time NCAA champion, an Olympic gold medalist, at age 34 got drafted second overall in the 1997 WNBA draft. She played two seasons with the Sacramento Monarchs and the Los Angeles Sparks.
Before her WNBA career, she was a member of back-to-back title teams at USC in 1983 and 1984, earning an Olympic gold medal in 1984, before embarking on a professional career that included stints in Brazil, France, Italy and Spain.
She was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012 and has been noted as one of the few women basketball players who has won on every level. 2 State Championships in Michigan with a still standing record of 75-0 wins. She then won 2 National Championships at the University of Southern California in the eighties.
Her son son JaVale who calls her his greatest inspiration has won three world NBA championships, two with the Golden State Warriors, and one with the Los Angeles Lakers. He played for six different teams through his first 12 seasons in the NBA.
JaVale McGee grew up surrounded by WNBA players, has always been good at basketball, but he said he couldn’t beat his mom in one-on-one for quite a while.
“I used to when I was younger. I couldn’t beat her until I was like 14.”
Pamela McGee has always been a force to reckon with, according to JaVale
“She’s always told me it doesn’t matter if you lose, win, fail, whatever as long as at the end of it you’re like ‘I tried my hardest’, like I worked my hardest, I was in the gym, I was in the weight room I was working my hardest. You can’t be mad at yourself at least, it just wasn’t meant to be. But if it happens, and you worked hard, it’s even more satisfying.”
“Playing in L.A. means so much to me, just because my mother played for USC and also the L.A. Sparks,” McGee said in a Lakers.com video. “That’s kind of crazy that I’ll play for the Lakers and she played for the Sparks, and we’re already the first son and mother to play in the NBA and WNBA.”
McGee also has a daughter, 6’7″ Imani McGee-Stafford, 26 who currently plays with the Dallas Wings and the Perth Lynx of the Women’s National Basketball League.
George Montgomery is JaVale McGee’s biological father, but he was not involved in raising McGee, according to MLive.
