Celtics
“I feel like it helped grow me.”
Dalano Banton would sit patiently in his elementary school classrooms, but he couldn’t resist looking at the clock every so often. After all, how could he? Each and every tick of that clock’s minute hand meant he was one minute closer to the start of his IT class. Banton could hardly wait to enter that classroom. The secret to improving his basketball skills lay just behind the room’s doors.
Once it became time for IT class to begin, Banton would waste no time in getting there. He’d race to the classroom before sitting down at one of the available computers, logging on and clicking on his internet browser to go on YouTube. Once he got to the site’s homepage, he would click on its search bar and begin to search for one of his favorite videos: a series of highlights from then-Celtics point guard Rajon Rondo set to the song “Remember the Name” by Fort Minor.
“I used to watch that mixtape all the time, every single day for years on years,” Banton told Boston.com. “Every time I got to go to a computer and type in YouTube I would watch that first.”
Every time the video played, it would fully absorb Banton as if it were the first time he had ever seen it. He watched highlight mixtapes of other point guards as well, but none of them would lock both his eyes and heart the way this one did. Watching the way Rondo would pass and move the ball reminded the young Banton of the type of basketball player he wanted to be when he grew up: a crafty point guard who found ways to get good looks for his teammates seemingly out of nowhere.
“[Rondo’s] passing was very intriguing to me, just how he got guys involved, how when he was on the floor guys just seemed to be open,” Banton said.
So Banton studied that video day after day as if it was the only way he could improve at the game. And in a way, it was. Basketball had lit a fire in his heart ever since he was a kid dribbling a ball on the courts of community centers and a parking lot in Toronto’s Rexdale neighborhood, but his hometown didn’t have many opportunities to stoke those flames.
Banton never received any one-on-one coaching or personal training growing up, both of which are modern-day necessities for any child with hopes of making it to the NBA. If he ever had a basketball in his hands, he was most likely playing a game, practicing, or playing pickup with members of his community. All of those outlets certainly helped him become a better basketball player, but he knew that he could improve even further.
This type of dilemma is oftentimes a deeply troubling one. That dream of taking your passion as far as it can go and becoming an expert at your chosen craft only stays a dream without a real-world opportunity to act on it. Banton found himself in this situation throughout most of his childhood, but by the time he turned 15 years old, he learned how some preparatory schools functioned in the United States.
He discovered that those schools prioritize drawing out the full potential of young athletes and turning them into the best players they can possibly be. In many of these schools, the students live on campus and are able to access facilities, gyms, and coaches nearly anytime they want, all while receiving an education similar to that of high school. Banton became hooked. That lifestyle and opportunity were everything he’d ever wanted.
“I knew I wanted to be a part of something like that, so I could always have access to a gym and the coaches [that] live on campus too, in a high school setting,” Banton said.
Banton barely even needed to make up his mind. He packed his bags and moved to Granby, Massachusetts, to begin his high school basketball career at MacDuffie School. The very thought of receiving the training, coaching, and gym access he always wanted as a child while facing off against some of the most pro-ready students in the world was little more than just a thought to Banton up to that point, and he couldn’t contain his excitement now that he was about to experience it for the first time.
But when he got there, he encountered an issue: the students around him were maybe a little too pro-ready.
“As soon as I came, the first person I saw when I walked into my dorm was six-foot-eight, and he was my age too, like 15, and he was like 230 [pounds],” Banton said. “I was like, six-foot-four, I was kind of skinny and I was like, ‘This is not going to work for me.’”
It wasn’t just his teammates that seemed destined for greater basketball success. Banton said that plenty of the players he faced would go on to play at high major schools, schools that most young players can only hope to be considered by.
This level of competition was the most difficult he had ever experienced before arriving in Massachusetts, a far cry from anything Banton had ever seen in Toronto.
“[Massachusetts is] a basketball state, I would say,” Banton said. “Boston alone is definitely a high-level basketball city. Just the competitiveness from when I came over, I immediately saw a change.”
In order to reach the skill level of those players, Banton knew he needed to see a change in his own game as well. But unlike at any other point in his life, this time he had an avenue to do so.
Banton spent plenty of time at the school’s gyms working out and fixing errors in his game, all while receiving guidance and training from some of the country’s best coaches. He took advantage of the opportunities that evaded him for most of his life. And through that process, he began his journey to becoming the best basketball player he could be.
“I knew that I wasn’t one of the best or as good as I needed to be to be where I wanted to be,” Banton said. Just knowing as soon as I came here that I had to raise my level. I had to get better.”
And he did. By the time he returned back to Toronto, Banton noticed several improvements in his game. He was a step faster, a more complete player, and confident enough to take on anyone who stood between him and the hoop.
But despite how much better he became, he knew he could improve even further. He moved to Northfield and finished out his high school career playing for Redemption Christian Academy, where he took the floor as a very skilled basketball player who had much less trouble with his opponents than he did the year before.
“I feel like after my first year here playing in Mass., when I came back my second year I was a lot better,” Banton said.
What was once a scrawny kid who struggled to compete with players his age was now getting noticed by universities across the nation. He was a four-star recruit by the time he graduated high school, and he caught the eye of Western Kentucky University. He accepted an offer spot to play for their basketball team before transferring to the University of Nebraska.
With that transfer, Banton proved that he was right about the level of competition in Massachusetts. There was at least one guy who went to high school in that state who would later play for a high major school: himself.
Three years into his collegiate basketball career, Banton was playing the best basketball of his life up to that point and establishing himself as one of the best players on Nebraska’s team. But that didn’t mean he was satisfied. It just meant he was almost ready to see his dream fully realized. And so, he decided to take the biggest risk he had ever taken, forgoing his remaining college eligibility to declare for the 2021 NBA Draft.
Names came flying off the board during the night off the draft, but not his. He was still available to be selected by the time the draft was beginning to wrap up. No one knew whether or not a team would draft him…until NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum walked to the podium holding an envelope containing the name of the player his hometown Toronto Raptors would select with the 46th pick.
And the words that would then come out of Tatum’s mouth were exactly what Banton had longed to hear for his entire life.
The Raptors had selected Dalano Banton.
Banton’s high school experience may have built him into an NBA player, but his growth in high school goes beyond the court too. He still cherishes the people that he met during his high school days and he often gives them tickets to Celtics games. Those people are among the most important people in his life and he would never have met them had he not moved to Massachusetts when he was 15.
“I feel like [living in Massachusetts] helped grow me,” Banton said “The people that I came up with in high school, they’re still my close friends.”
Banton used that first phrase multiple times when describing his high school experience in Massachusetts, and he means it. He credits the people and coaches he met during his high school days for changing his life. Those relationships will always stick with him no matter where he goes.
“The amount of people I met not just in Massachusetts, but the whole New England area. Just the relationships I have to this day, I feel like it helped grow me.”
For the first time since he graduated high school, Banton has returned to Massachusetts to play basketball full-time there. But this time, he’s doing so as a member of the Boston Celtics. And that’s not the only difference. When he first moved as a teenager, he was a complete stranger to everyone else in the city and was adjusting to his brand new life in the United States. Now, he knows several people and places in the area and feels connected to it in a way that he doesn’t feel about most other American cities.
But that’s not all his high school experience gave him. It taught Banton so much about what it meant to be a person and a basketball player, and it helped him become an NBA basketball player for the very same team that Rajon Rondo played for in the video that captivated him in his elementary school IT class all those years ago.
“I feel like I built a relationship with the state, the city early, just having a lot of people here and knowing a lot of people,” Banton said. “So it means a lot and it’s continuing to be part of my journey.”
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