On Halloween morning, between practice and first period, the Long Beach Poly High School varsity boys basketball team received a visit from the Warriors’ new fan favorite.
It was only four years ago that Jordan Bell was one of them, a gangly senior with braces whose raw fundamentals made it tough for anyone — his coaches, his girlfriend, his mother — to take his NBA dream seriously. When Bell told those teenagers not to be limited by others’ expectations, they furrowed their eyebrows and straightened their backs.
“You can look at kids and tell if they’re listening to you and understanding,” Bell said after a recent Golden State practice.