LOS ANGELES — Carter Bryant used to chase his dreams in silence.
He realized from an early age that defense was going to be his calling card, but he learned defense without calling out anything.
Bryant is a GODA (grandchild of deaf adults) who grew up in a household that spoke American Sign Language (ASL). The first word he signed was “ball.” His mother is an ASL interpreter. His father coached the girls basketball team at the California School for the Deaf in Riverside (CSDR). While Bryant himself is not deaf, the deaf community is his community.
It’s why the 20-year-old San Antonio Spurs rookie forward developed his game in a way few NBA players have: without a word. Bryant learned defense by playing pick-up with deaf kids, where there was no verbal communication.
“If I’m guarding the ball and I have four other people behind me, you kind of have no idea what’s going on,” Bryant told The Athletic. “So being able to check out your peripherals, use your feet and just have a sense of natural feel for the game, it’s different. We take it for granted as players, and we don’t use our other senses as much, but we don’t have to.”
Bryant explained how deaf players, more than most, understand basketball as a sport of trust and dedication. That’s the only way to play when you’re defending the ball and can’t hear what’s behind you. They have to communicate in the moments between action, then trust their teammates to be in the right position.
To compensate, they learn to move through ball screens because their other senses are so enhanced. And they learn to play all out.
“There’s a lot of times where in basketball, or just in life, if you put effort towards something, it is going to save you 90 percent of the time,” said Bryant, a late addition to Friday night’s Rising Stars competition and one of four entries in Saturday night’s dunk contest at All-Star Weekend in the Intuit Dome.
“I promise you, if you go watch a deaf basketball game, they play a lot harder than you would. They play their ass off. I try to adopt that mentality and that mindset.”
Growing up, Bryant had a consistent routine throughout his week. He played at CSDR after school every day with deaf students, then went to the Grove in Riverside to play pick-up with hearing kids around his age. He spent half the day speaking ASL, then the other half speaking verbally. He grew up around the Valencia and Biskubiak families, both revered for their impact on the deaf community.
Bryant’s maternal grandmother, Shelly Freed, is an administrator at CSDR. His maternal grandfather, Mike “Doc” Torres, played his way into the USA Deaf Basketball Hall of Fame. (“Everybody I’ve heard from said, ‘Your grandpa was a bad boy.’ So I’m going to take their word for it,” Bryant said.) His grandparents were fixtures of the deaf community.
“For the longest time, I thought half the population was deaf and half the population was hearing,” Bryant said. “Because, just how I was brought up, half my day was spent with deaf people. Half of my day was just walking around, and I would come across so many deaf people.”
Spurs rookie Carter Bryant reflects on his upbringing as part of the deaf community. (Photo by Jared Weiss / The Athletic)
He found comfort in the audible tranquility of being a hearing kid in a deaf world. Breaking his leg entering ninth grade helped him realize just how badly he wanted to play basketball professionally. He started working out four times a day, setting up cones around the court so he could push himself when nobody else was around. Just the sound of the ball hitting the hardwood and his sneakers squeaking against the court. He fell in love with the work.
That carried him through high school and a season in college, eventually landing him in San Antonio with the 14th pick in last summer’s NBA Draft. But at the top level, the cones weren’t enough.
“I was just overthinking everything, just being a perfectionist,” he said. “I got here and saw how much you play against live bodies, and that’s why guys get so much better.”
As he struggled to find minutes, the Spurs’ post-practice play groups became his battleground. Bryant scrimmages with other bench players like Bismack Biyombo, Kelly Olynyk, Jordan McLaughlin, Lindy Waters and, until he was waived this past week, Jeremy Sochan. He spent every day trying to put the ball on the floor while being guarded by a disruptive wing in Sochan, then trying to contain a quick guard like McLaughlin or body up a brick-wall big like Biyombo. He began to understand the tendencies that keep some players in the NBA for years, learning how to counter and then take advantage of them. It just wasn’t translating to the actual games yet.
He was simultaneously grateful to his teammates, who gave him a crash course on the NBA game, while being driven to become the level of player who never has to scrimmage with the other reserves after practice.
“I don’t want to play the game of basketball to just be a role player. I want to be amongst the greatest that ever played the game,” Bryant said. “I want to be in that conversation. A lot of those guys have a ‘Don’t give an f—‘ mentality. You have to be super delusional. I think I was delusional in my work, but it wasn’t showing yet on the court. I’m sure everybody could tell.”
In the opening months of the season, it was obvious. Bryant moved like a robot, by his own admission. He skied for dunks, then missed, because he was too stiff. It got to the point that his teammates told him they’d shave his head if he missed three dunks in a row.
“As much as something’s a joke, it’s the reality of the situation, too. They’re joking around with me to stop missing dunks, but I need to stop missing damn dunks,” Bryant said. “I can’t be a dunk contest champion if I miss dunks. So you take the good with the bad. You take the laughs that come with it.”
Bryant tried to stay connected to his younger self, taking time to seek out and interact with members of the deaf community. He has participated in several events with deaf schools in Texas since joining the Spurs. He often sees deaf DoorDash delivery drivers and offers to help translate when he walks by the front desk of the team hotel. He’ll say a warm hello to a deaf family walking through Target, just to fortify the sense of community hiding in plain sight.
But after a series of missed dunks in early January, Spurs coach Mitch Johnson sent Bryant to the Austin Spurs in the G League to find himself. Bryant had taken a spot in the rotation that could have been filled by Sochan or Waters, but he didn’t trust his game yet. Johnson had to give someone else a chance while the 20-year-old Bryant figured things out.
“I was like, I don’t want to mess up,” Bryant said. “I remember, I talked to Mitch, and he was like, ‘You’ve got to stop caring. I want you to not care. I want you to go and play. I want you to have fun.’”
Bryant scored 15 points in his one game in Austin, finally feeling a freedom on the ball and a dose of swag that sent him back to San Antonio with confidence. He was more daring in the post-practice play groups, not afraid to shoot whatever shot he could find or take risks on defense.
He understood his teammates’ tendencies better, but he finally remembered the lessons he learned playing with his deaf friends growing up. His emphasis shifted to trusting his teammates alongside him rather than fixating on defending the player in front of him to perfection.
Johnson liked what he saw from Bryant and opened up more minutes for the rookie over the past few weeks. Now Bryant is hitting 3s (38.5 percent over his last 15 games), making impact defensive plays and even making (most of) his dunks.
He showed enough flashes for the NBA to invite him to Saturday’s dunk contest. Bryant admitted it came out of nowhere, acknowledging he’s only attempted nine dunks and missed about half of them. It’s a sign of the sad state of affairs that is the dunk contest, where the league is struggling to cobble together a crew with any household recognition.
But that’s fine for Bryant. He arrived in Los Angeles with freshly rolled braids, looking eerily reminiscent of a former Spurs wing with whom his nascent game resembles, Kawhi Leonard. After spending so much of his life on an empty court, just him and the cones, Bryant will be on the NBA’s center stage with another opportunity to take a step toward being in that conversation.
“Oddly enough, I got the chance to get back all those missed dunks.”
He may go out there and put on a show, or he may brick his way to an early exit and a farewell to those braids. But he’s been putting in the work. As he learned growing up playing with his deaf community, now he has to trust it.
“I see being deaf as a super power,” Bryant said. “They find a way to just survive and advance.”