I think we need to hire Anfernee's dad as a coach.
"I was trying to influence him on creating good habits," Charles said. "Sometimes, when you're young, you go right every single time. It may look good. It may put points on the board. But, realistically, that's not basketball. You've got to go right and left and understand how to shoot and do those things. So I was just real tough on him to try to create good habits with what he does."
For Charles, success rested in the details. It was about repetition. It was about playing fundamentally sound. It was about playing the right way no matter how old you are.
And it was all lost on a kid who just wanted to hoop.
"He would constantly make him do stuff over again, was really nitpicky," Simons' mother, Tameka, said. "When you're a basketball player, you see the details. But Anfernee was like, 'Why do I have to shoot it again? I made the shot? My husband was like, 'No, your footwork wasn't right. You have to make sure you do it this way, the defender is going to take the ball from you if you do it that way.' There were lots of little things like that. As he got older, he understood the little pickiness and why his dad was like that. But, of course, you're not going to get that when you're 5, 6 years old."
So Tameka evolved into a mediator, measuring her son's mood and mental stability with his father's instruction, providing a needed "balance." Along the way, there were plenty of battles -- and tears.
"The tough love, telling me what I'm doing wrong all that time and kind of critiquing me all the time, it kind of made me be tougher mentally," Simons said. "When I was 5 years old, I couldn't take that. So I was crying a lot."
