Lamont Paris on GG Jackson: ‘He’s a superstar as a person’

South Carolina and Lamont Paris had a small victory during the 2023 NBA Draft, as GG Jackson was selected by the Memphis Grizzlies with the No. 45 overall selection.

Proud as ever of one of his star players, Paris spoke with the media and relayed what he told NBA squads prior to the draft, truly believing that Jackson can be a superstar at the next level not only due to his on-court ability, but his magnetic personality.

“Well as a basketball player, they do a good job of evaluating that. His potential is through the roof. He’s long, athletic. He’s shown that he can shoot the ball with range. But again, they’ll evaluate all that. When they ask me, I talk about who he is as a person. He’s a superstar as a person,” explained Paris. “To be honest with you, I always tell them, ‘If you draft him, and the basketball works out the way that I think it can work out for you, you’ll have a superstar on your hands, not because of what he does with basketball, but because of who he is as a person.’ Because not every person can be a superstar.

“He’s got a magnetic personality. So again, I’m just — I’m really excited for him.”

Moreover, Paris continued to wax poetic about Jackson, stating how proud he is of his former star player for getting to this point in his basketball journey.

“I’m extremely proud of all the things he’s done, and actually probably lowest on the list are his basketball accomplishments,” Paris added. “I expected that all of those would happen, but again as I mentioned before, just at the age he was with some of the obstacles we had.”

GG Jackson was a highly-rated recruit out of high school, ranked a five-star prospect and one of the top 10 players in the country for the 2022 class according to On3’s Industry Ranking. Originally committed to North Carolina, Jackson reclassified and committed to South Carolina, where he’d lead the Gamecocks in scoring as a freshman with 15.4 points per game. 

He earned All-SEC Freshman Team honors following the season and had 11 games with 20-plus points, but Paris is more proud of how he was able to battle through adversity to get to where he is now.

GG Jackson is on to the NBA, but he’ll always have the support of Lamont Paris and the Gamecocks in his corner, as he looks to become an even greater professional player in the association.

On3’s Kaiden Smith contributed to this article.