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The courts around Fort Greene, Brooklyn, raised Deron Rippey Jr. The No. 16 player in the Class of 2026, according to ESPN, still vividly remembers the familiar faces and rivalries that formed over the concrete as a kid. A sly grin comes over his face when he thinks back to the times he was trying to slap the backboard on each of his layups. Breaking a spontaneous full-court press and scoring constant transition buckets was electric. It was the freest he’s ever felt playing the game. And when the court wasn’t available, he’d grab his ball and head over to the monkey bars. The square openings served as the cup, as he leapt from the bark chips, imagining he was punching it on a regulation rim.
“Those moments really created the love of the game for me,” Rippey says. “I was always excited when I had a free summer day [and] I knew I could go to the park and shoot or work out with my dad. Or I was always looking forward to a game. I feel like having those moments to look ahead to as a kid really made me love the game more.”
The years spent honing his skills on the same grounds where Bernard King, Erick Barkley, Taj Gibson, streetball legend Ed “Booger” Smith and Epiphany Prince first made their names are baked into the 6-2 point guard's every movement. On any given afternoon, Deron’s family would watch him in a game at one park, and then travel down the block for the next game. He’s collected trophies from nearly every single local tournament in the area, from The Main Event to Project Win, Tillery Park and Hoop Connection. And he’s already got championship pedigree at Rucker and Dyckman. “It wasn't just Fort Greene he played in. I think Ron Ron,”—as the family calls him—“played in every park damn near in Brooklyn,” Patricia Rippey, his mother, says.
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The after-school program his mom helped run remembers him by the nickname “Kobe,” a nod to his extensive commitment to the hardwood. From 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Deron was running with the youngins. And then he’d rock out until 11 p.m. with the big kids, praying that it wasn’t time to go home just yet.
“I don't want to say the entirety of who I am, but definitely most of my habits, how I move, how I walk, how I talk—everything I do kind of reflects my love for the game,” Rippey says.
His father, Deron Rippey Sr., a Brooklyn basketball persona in his own right, would have Ron Ron up at 5:30 a.m. as an 8-year-old, building upon the greatness that had already walked the same streets and shot at the same parks. Defensive slides in the blistering summer sun. Full court sprints. Step-ups in the apartment’s stairwell. Calisthenics in the family room. Looking back, the early morning commitments are Deron’s first memory of taking the game seriously.
“That moment kind of gave me a vision of what it actually takes,” Rippey says. “I didn’t know if I was going to fully commit to it. But I knew that if I wanted to fully commit, then those were the kinds of sacrifices that I would have to make.”
In turn, the No. 1 point guard in the nation has an immaculate feel for the game. Both naturally and intentionally, he makes those around him better. His speed in the open floor is blinding. The monkey bars are long gone, too. This is one of the best risers in his class, with the scars on his wrists and forearms to prove it. The BK tenacity he plays with extends to both sides of the ball, pridefully picking up 94 feet and gliding behind defenders for blocks above the rim.
The workouts growing up were grueling, pushing through a combination of the East Coast’s summer humidity and the early morning grogginess. But Deron Rippey Sr. knew what it would take for Ron Ron to see his love for the game take him to the highest of levels. A standout guard and 1,000-point scorer at Cheshire Academy, the eldest Rippey took his talents to East Carolina in the mid-’90s.
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Everywhere Ron Ron went as a kid, there was someone close by to remind him of his dad’s local history and the legends he held his own against. “It reached a point where it became motivation for me to reach the status of some of those guys. You know some of the legends that came [through] here, Booger Smith. There would always be Taj Gibson Day and whatnot. I just always wanted to be a part of stuff like that and shape that around my future,” Rippey says.
It wasn’t until the entire Rippey family traveled back to Cheshire’s campus in Connecticut that Deron got to see the full impact his pops made. Ron Ron was just 11 years old when he watched his father be inducted into the Memorial Athletic Hall of Fame at Cheshire. In the midst of stories about his dad’s past posters and pick and roll mastery, the off-court impact was felt more than ever, with a community nearly 100 miles north of his hometown celebrating his dad for an afternoon.
“Seeing that moment was, now looking back on it, really important for me just because I think it was an intentional blueprint from him to me. Just really seeing the impact that you can have on a place outside of basketball,” Rippey recalls. “We went there, and there were tons of people that knew who he was. And obviously they talked about the skill and his stature as a basketball player, but they also shined a light on his character and his impact outside of basketball. That was just important for me—to have that moment where people were valuing him more than just a basketball player.”
When the family got home to Brooklyn, Deron had a request. He wanted to follow in his dad’s footsteps, asking for his family to look into what a future at prep school could look like. That’s when Rippey Sr. knew Rippey Jr. was truly ready for the gauntlet.
As a middle schooler at Brooklyn Prospect, Deron would attend morning practices with the varsity team, manning the starting point guard responsibilities as a 6th grader. After practicing and then attending school at 7 a.m., Deron would get picked up and driven out to Long Island for another practice at St. Mary’s High School with the NY Rens. On top of the twice-weekly practices were his workouts at the Brooklyn Youth Sports Center and then middle school games in the Catholic Youth Organization. Monday through Thursday was packed. And the weekends were spent at the park working out with his dad or expanding his creativity with the rock in games.
“Now we're starting to put this together like, he has the right idea, he has the work ethic, he can be special. And then it was a conversation of, What do you want out [of] the game? And he shared his goals. We always have our goals before we go to school, and we try to check off those boxes, and he was able to accomplish that,” Rippey Sr. says.
As Ron Ron’s schedule started to get more stacked, so did the concepts and skill sets his dad had him build upon. That's when his sister De’Naya—a fellow 1,000 point scorer at Cheshire and Duquesne transfer—started to notice just how different her brother was from other kids. His IQ, natural skills and knack for making difficult shots look like his bread and butter was a direct result of the increased competition he had constantly been exposed to, from Washington Park to the broader East Coast.
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“My dad had us in Washington Park, learning the game, the IQ, the skill development, making shots together, conditioning together. That was my favorite aspect because we both had to go through hard times together. And whatever he had to go through, I had to go through, or whatever I had to go through, he had to go through,” De’Naya says. “So just sharing the court and getting through those challenges together is what made us stronger as siblings.”
After taking the out-of-state leap to Blair Academy in New Jersey, Deron Rippey Jr. has spent the past four years etching his name alongside NYC’s greats. He’s won a middle school national championship, three state titles in high school and led Blair to the National Prep Championship this past spring. A résumé that’s set to place his No. 0 Blair threads next to the likes of Charlie Villanueva, Royal Ivey and Luol Deng when next season rolls around. The table and windowsill in his parents' apartment next to the BQE are overflowing with evidence of his winnings, including two New Jersey Gatorade Player of the Year honors and the 2025-26 National Prep Player of the Year award.
The individual and team accolades sum up a consistent desire to put himself, and others, in the best possible position to succeed. A pure point guard mentality was built over the years that saw Ron Ron exposed to multiple coaching styles. Every moment was intentional, from workouts with his dad and uncle alongside the greater Fort Greene community of coaches while testing himself against older competition in Bed Stuy. Ron Ron's parents wanted their son to be able to handle any situation thrown at him, so they put him in positions where he played up and played his age. They had him play in tournaments where he could learn how to handle the ball and be the main point person of a team. They put him in scenarios where he had to go out and score 20 a game for his team to win. And they put him on teams where he was the 12th man off the bench to work toward playing time while remaining a great teammate.
“I think all of this helped mold him, but his mindset as he started to play the game of basketball, it was just more about him loving the game. So, by him loving the game, he wanted to make sure everybody felt the way he felt,” Rippey Sr. says. “So, if you won a national championship, and you won a middle school, and you won three states, and you got your team to the national title, that's why you're going to Duke.”
In just a few weeks, the accolades, memories and Brooklyn-built toughness will travel south to join the Duke Blue Devils’ loaded freshmen class. Rippey Jr. says the coaching staff in Durham is expecting the same winning plays, offensive creation and defensive disruption that’s been on display for the past number of years to reign supreme inside Cameron Indoor and across the nation.
“The biggest thing I’m looking forward to in the summer is getting the feedback and ultimately evolving from a top high school player into a top college player. Using that feedback to shape me as a top college player to an NBA prospect as well,” Rippey says on his upcoming arrival to Duke. “That’s my biggest goal there.”
Getting one step closer to cementing his status.
