With His Mom In Prison, Kris Dunn Used To Win Money For Him And His Brother By Playing 1-On-1 Games
Every NBA player has a story to tell. Each one has a different upbringing, and most have some sort of adversity they had to overcome to become one of the best basketball players in the world.
One player may have the saddest, yet, the most inspiring story out of anyone in the NBA. That player is free-agent Kris Dunn.
As a 9-year-old living in Alexandria, Virginia, Kris, and his older brother, 13-year John Dunn, didn't grow up like “normal” kids.
The two brothers lived with their mother, Pia James, who fled New London, Connecticut, to get away from the boy's father, John Seldon.
The Dunn brothers didn't have cable. Many times they didn't have hot water, but this wasn't a concern, especially to Kris. To him, this was “normal life”.
Kris' mother, Pia, leaving and being arrested for a few days, was also “normal life” for Kris and John.
Pia was always getting in trouble for credit-card fraud to driving while intoxicated. She'd always come back after a few days. Then, one day, she left and didn't come back.
This put John in charge since he was the older brother, but no family should have a 13-year-old as the head of the house.
With no mother around to bring in money for food, Kris and John had to do whatever they could to survive.
The brothers would sell their clothes, including their “Air Jordans”, at a discounted price just so they could have money for a meal.
John would gamble in a nearby park using trick dice to win games of craps and 7–11.
Kris had two different approaches to gaining money for the household.
One way he'd get some money was by fighting teenage drug dealers who hung around his area at night and taking their money.
Kris' other way of gaining money, which was probably less violent, was by playing older boys one-on-one in basketball for $20.
Even though Kris didn't have the money to back up the bet, he played anyway. Kris Dunn betted on himself.
Of course, Kris would sometimes lose, and in that situation, he'd run away, and sometimes he had to fight.
Kris had this to say about his childhood:
“It was literally hell. There probably wasn’t one day we smiled. My highs were through the roof, and my lows were through the floor.”
Times were tough indeed. Kris and John ended up skipping school, so they could focus on earning money. This brought people over to their house, trying to locate them.
Kris and John wouldn't answer the door, and they certainly didn't want to speak to the police in fear they'd be separated in foster care.
Kris' mother left his father when he was just an infant. His mother did everything in her power to have Kris' father, lose all connections with them.
When John Seldon came home one day, he found his house empty. His entire family was gone, vanished without a trace. Seldon fell into his own dark place, just like his sons, who were more than 350 miles away.
Seldon tried to locate his sons over the next eight years, even going to the courts, but they provided little help.
While Pia was locked up during her long stretch, she grew desperate to help her two sons.
She gave in and contacted Seldon and made arraignment for their son, John, to meet with Seldon in Connecticut to gather clothing and other necessities.
Then, John would travel back home and leave Seldon alone in Connecticut without his family.
When Kris found this out, he was crushed, jealous in fact that his brother could meet with their father and not him.
In an interview with USA Today Sports, Kris had this to say about the situation:
“I almost felt like it was unfair that my brother got to meet my father and I didn’t. I guess it wasn’t the right time. I was very intrigued to meet my father. I wanted someone who could teach me how to be a man. Just having a father figure around, someone that I could just talk to about any situation. Having that relationship that fathers and sons should definitely have.”
John did return home with supplies, and Seldon was once again without his family. But Seldon wasn't going to let his two boys slip through his fingers again.
Seldon looked over his phone bill and discovered the numbers that John had used to contact him.
A few phone calls later, Seldon learned about Pia’s incarceration and where the boys were staying. This gave him the ammunition he needed to go to court and win custody over Kris and John Dunn.
Once custody was awarded to Seldon, he drove straight to Virginia to get his boys.
Kris, who was used to the struggle by now, had a violent reaction when his father first tried to enter the apartment.
Kris grabbed a hot sauce bottle and tried to hit Seldon because he was unaware that Seldon was his father. It took John to calm Kris down by letting him know it was their dad that stood in front of them.
When Seldon took Kris and John back to New London, Connecticut, it wasn't an easy adjustment, especially for young Kris.
“I’m the type of person that I don’t just trust anybody,” Kris said. “You have to build that relationship and that trust, and my dad, he was very great at that. He didn’t try to put too much pressure on me.”
Kris finally had some structure and security in his life. He also had a brand-new family. Along with a father, Kris and John now had a stepmother, a 10-year-old brother (Seldon's wife's son), and two infant sisters (daughters of Seldon and his wife).
Things began to look up for him, especially in high school athletics.
Kris dominated basketball and his father's game of choice, football. As a freshman, Kris was the starting point guard and by his sophomore year, he led his team to the state title game.
Kris would make All-American honors in 2012, which certainly caught attention from a few big schools.
Scouts from all over, including UConn and Kentucky, attended Kris' games. It was ultimately head coach Ed Cooley, from Providence, who made that connection with Kris.
“I needed somebody who’s gonna keep me fighting in life and never forget my pain and struggle,” Kris said of speaking with Ed Cooley. “I knew he was gonna be that person.”
So, Kris chose Providence to play basketball, even though Seldon, a former football great at New London and later in Dodge City, Kansas, where he played college ball, wanted Kris to play football.
When Kris broke the news to his father that he was quitting football to focus on basketball, Seldon had this to say:
“If you would’ve watched him play football, it was unbelievable. Everybody says he made the right decision. That’s what he wants to do. I’m going to back him on what he wants to do. That’s what parents do. You back your children up.”
Kris wanted to play basketball because, during the time when things were the harshest, it was basketball that put food on the table.
Basketball helped Kris Dunn survive. Now, the challenge was to survive in college.
Things would start rough for Kris in his college years, just like his childhood days.
The summer before starting his college career, Kris had surgery to repair a shoulder injury. This cost him to sit out until December.
Kris' sophomore season wouldn't be much better. He re-injured the same shoulder, which would cause him to miss the rest of the season after playing in just four ineffective games.
Things continued to get worse for Kris. After his sophomore season, his mother passed away. This, along with another surgery on his shoulder, had him doubting his future.
But like when he was a child growing up impoverished, Kris didn't quit. He kept fighting harder.
Kris' next year would be his breakout year. He won Big East Defensive Player of the Year and Player of the Year in 2014-15 after averaging 15.6 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 7.5 assists per game.
Kris declared for the draft that year but didn’t hire an agent. He eventually changed his mind, citing he wanted to work on some holes in his game and he wanted to obtain his college degree.
Kris would follow his 2014-15 year performance in 2015-16 by averaging 16.4 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 6.2 assists per game.
Kris would win Big East Defensive Player of the Year and Player of the Year for the second consecutive year.
He joined Patrick Ewing (Georgetown '85) as the only players in the history of the Big East to win Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year twice.
Kris would skip his redshirt junior season and enter the 2016 NBA Draft and was taken 5th overall by the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Only days after being drafted, Kris rented a van with a couple of hundred backpacks.
Volunteers handed them out to the kids at his high school. The van would return later with boxes of pizza.
This wouldn't be the first generous thing Kris would do before stepping on an NBA court.
“Before he even played his first game in the NBA,” New London coach Craig Parker said, “Kris bought the entire boys and girls, basketball teams, here everything you could possibly need for basketball.”
Kris' struggles as a child inspired him to help underprivileged children wherever he goes.
After his rookie season in Minnesota, where he didn't see much playing time, the Timberwolves traded him to the Chicago Bulls.
Kris would continue to help children in Chicago and he'd earn a starting role on the Chicago Bulls.
After three solid seasons in Chicago, Kris signed with the Atlanta Hawks. His one year in Atlanta was plagued with injuries.
Kris played only four games for the Hawks due to leg injuries, which required surgery.
After a few more trades that landed Kris in Memphis, the Grizzlies released him on September 15, 2021.
Even though Kris Dunn finds himself on the free-agent roster, we know he won't stop fighting.
Similar to when he was a kid, playing basketball just to survive, Kris will continue to survive with his play and end up on a team's roster sometime soon.
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