At Dylan Harper’s NBA Draft night party, Dylan and his mom, Maria, discuss family, loyalty, and how they did things their own way to get where they are.
A little before 11 p.m. ET on Wednesday at the Flyfish Club members-only establishment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, New Jersey’s first family of basketball arrived to celebrate an achievement nearly two decades in the making. Less than three hours earlier, Dylan Harper was selected as the second overall pick in the NBA Draft, the culmination of a lifetime of hard work, sacrifice, loyalty, and dedication from the family that helped mold the Rutgers point guard into a basketball prodigy.
Downstairs at the Cattail Room, a speakeasy with a bar and luxurious leather booths, music blared as extended family, friends, and a tight-knit circle of associates reveled with food and drink as they mingled with one another while watching the rest of the first round unfold on TV. Members of the Scarlet Knights basketball team, his representatives at WME, executives from event sponsors such as Red Bull, Wingstop, Prudential, and Raymond James, and close family friends, including one young man who had known Dylan since kindergarten, assembled together to celebrate their native son joining the San Antonio Spurs.
“It means everything, everyone supporting and really showing the love,” Harper told Boardroom. “I love everything about it.”
A native of Bergen County in North Jersey, Harper, the son of five-time NBA champion Ron and college basketball star Maria, always stayed close and loyal to his extended family that includes Dylan’s older brother Ron Jr., who also starred at Rutgers and now plays for the Detroit Pistons, and younger sister Mia. Inside a quiet, hidden back room at the Cattail Room, immediate family dined on steaks, lamb, and fish while finally having a quiet moment to themselves for the first time during that momentous evening. Maria’s parents, she told Boardroom, also helped raise Dylan, along with her sisters, one of whom is a yoga teacher who frequently taught her nephew, and one a chef.
Maria, who played at the University of New Orleans in the 1990s, helped coach Dylan through high school at Don Bosco Prep. This localized approach played a major role in Harper rejecting offers from much larger, more prestigious traditional college basketball powerhouses to commit to Rutgers, unafraid to do things their own way rather than conform to convention. Just over 18 months ago, Harper was again joined by family, friends, and teammates at Fanatics‘ office to make his college commitment official, telling me at the time that he enjoyed being a trailblazer who wanted to learn from people who would have his back no matter what.
“Life is about sharing these moments with family,” Maria Harper told Boardroom. “Not any one of us gets to where we are by ourselves. It takes a big village, your village. It’s a necessity.”
Subscribe for the biggest stories in the business of sports and entertainment, daily.
The brands that sponsored Wednesday’s party are largely the ones who stuck with Harper during college and are ones that will likely remain on board as he transitions to the NBA as well. Wingstop Director of Influencer and Social Marketing Ryan Boyd said that Harper “has a very unique style that we embrace,” underscoring the importance of recognizing his talent early on.
Red Bull has also made waves signing elite young athletes similar to Harper, such as Arch Manning, and AJ Dybantsa, the latter of whom has forged a bond with the new Spurs rookie.
“I was in Switzerland up at 2 a.m. watching my dawg getting drafted! I was yelling when Adam Silver said D Harp,” Dybantsa, a BYU commit and potential top pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, told Boardroom.
Whether it’s family or the companies he chooses to align himself with moving forward, Maria emphasized that loyalty trumps everything. That includes his agent at WME, Drew Gross, who’s stuck with the Harpers since Ron Jr. was in college, sharing the same values as her and her family.
“Every brand partnership I do,” Dylan said, “I try to just make sure that they’re the right ones for me and that they always stay with me.”
“I understand the reason they want to partner with him, because he is an incredible human being,” Maria continued. “We have to scrutinize who we partner with, so long as they align with our values and he loves it and celebrates it.”
With Dylan now teaming with Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs, Maria and her family won’t have her youngest son in the immediate area for the first time. However, during the predraft process, one of the first things that stood out to Dylan was the Spurs’ family values, which seemed to mirror his own. It was surreal, Maria said, for the draft process to be over and to be in this moment, surrounded by those she loves and who helped guide Dylan and the Harpers to this point.
When looking back on this night in the future, Maria said she’ll look back fondly knowing that the unconventional path they took to get here was the right one.
“I’m going to remember that we did it our way,” she said, “and we never compromised on how we wanted to do things.”
Through loyalty and determination, the Harpers raised a son who is ready to face the NBA … and the world.
Read More:
Inside Stephen A. Smith’s Plan to Become the Biggest Name in Sports Media
How Artificial Intelligence is Changing the Future of Sports Betting
Jurnee Smollett’s Next Act: ‘I Want Us to Do Things We’ve Been Told We Cannot Do’
Reddit at 20: How the Social Network Became a $26B Internet Giant
Fairways & Fashion: Adidas Makes its Mark in LPGA, Women’s Golf
