From college to the pros, former SPIRE Academy Basketball players are finding the success they’d always dreamed of. The chance to play for some of the biggest names in the NBA. The chance to play for some of the biggest names in the NCAA. With raw talent arriving from places far and wide, and honed to a tee on the world-class courts of SPIRE. Here are five of those razor-sharp talents: where they were, where they are now and where they might be headed.
You can’t talk about SPIRE Basketball without talking about LaMelo Ball. As far as the NBA goes, Ball (what a name for a basketball player!) is currently a star player for the Charlotte Hornets. Selected by them third overall in the 2020 NBA draft, Ball was voted NBA Rookie of the Year in 2021 and named an NBA All-Star the following season.
A California native, Ball played high school basketball for Chino Hills High School. After two seasons, he skipped his junior year and part of his senior year to play professionally in Europe. In 2018, Ball enrolled at SPIRE and recorded 20 points, 13 assists and five rebounds in his debut game. Ball helped his team reach the final and was ultimately named season MVP.
As a starting point guard for the Hornets, Ball is nothing if not on a roll right now. In their 2024-2525 season opener, he put up 34 points, eight rebounds, and 11 assists in a 110–105 win over the Houston Rockets. He also became the first player in franchise history to drop at least 30 points and 10 assists in a season-opening game. SPIRE ballers, consider the bar set.
The Charlotte Hornets aren’t the only NBA team to strike gold with a former SPIRE basketball player. In the 2023 NBA draft the Indiana Pacers selected Pickett 32nd overall. He subsequently ended up with the Denver Nuggets after Indiana traded his draft rights.
Pickett played high school basketball in Rochester, New York for the Aquinas Institute. As a senior there, Pickett averaged 20 points and 10 rebounds per game, with the team reaching the Class AA Federation Final. Pickett’s time playing at SPIRE was for a postgraduate year, where he averaged 14 points, 6.3 rebounds, 4.6 assists and 2.1 steals per game.
He first played college ball at Siena College in New York. After three highly successful seasons there—which included being named MAAC Rookie of the Year and MAAC Player of the Year—he transferred to Penn State. On February 14, 2023, in a 93-81 victory over Illinois, Pickett scored a career-high 41 points, making him Penn State’s first 40-point scorer since 1961. Pickett also became the fourth Penn State player ever to score 2,000 points.
Playing for Denver, Pickett’s already helped his team reach the playoffs. It won’t be the last time.
We already told you: you can’t talk about SPIRE Basketball without talking about LaMelo Ball. Isiah Jackson, the current power forward for the Indiana Pacers, played with Ball at SPIRE for his junior year. Jackson was born in Pontiac, Michigan and played for two different high schools before transferring to SPIRE, where he averaged 14.9 points and 10.4 rebounds per game.
The next stop on Jackson’s basketball journey was the University of Kentucky. Playing for the Wildcats on December 1, 2020, Jackson recorded seven points, 12 rebounds and a career-high eight blocks against Kansas, garnering the most single-game blocks by a Kentucky player since 2013 in the process. Jackson averaged 8.4 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per game as a Wildcat freshman. In 2021, he declared for the 2021 NBA draft, and was a first-round NBA draft pick. Unfortunately, a torn Achilles tendon has ended Jackson’s 2024 season. Stay tuned for 2025.
Buffalo-native Dominick Welch’s story is one of persistence and perseverance paying off. A basketball prodigy, Welch was promoted to the varsity team at Cheektowaga Central High School in eighth grade. In 2017, he was named Buffalo News Player of the Year, and set the all-time record for scoring in Western New York, with 2,376 points in his high school career.
At SPIRE, Welch led his team to a 24–8 record, and was named Power-5 Prep Conference Player of the Year. In 2018, Welch committed to St. Bonaventure University. He played in 110 games during his time there, and was named team captain in the process. In his senior year, Welch was awarded NIT All-Tournament honors after leading St. Bonaventure to the semifinals.
After graduating from St. Bonaventure, Welch enrolled at the University of Alabama as a graduate student in 2022. He saw action in 20 games there, but also lots of injuries. He went undrafted in the NBA for 2023, but did play professionally for UBSC Graz. After trying but failing to make the NBA G League, he played for the Buffalo Xtreme, the Montréal Toundra and finally the KW Titans of the Basketball Super League in 2024. The story continues for Welch.
Mark “Rockett” Watts’ story further makes the case for SPIRE’s role in taking raw basketball talent and shaping it into college material. Currently a free agent, Watts played college ball for the Michigan State Spartans, the Mississippi State Bulldogs and the Oakland Golden Grizzlies.
He spent his first year of high school at Allen Academy in Detroit, averaging 14.1 points and leading his team to a 19–3 record. Watts played at Old Redford Academy in Detroit for the next two years, averaging 26.8 points, 5.6 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 3.1 steals per game. For his senior year, he transferred to SPIRE and played on the same team as, you guessed it, LaMelo Ball. In January 2019, he scored a career-high 64 points in a win over St. Edward High School.
In 2018, Watts committed to play college ball for Michigan State. Tom Izzo, Michigan’s coach, had his eye on Watts since eighth grade. That first year, Watts scored a season-high 21 points in a 70–69 win against Illinois. In 2021, Watts entered the transfer portal, ending his career with the Spartans and transferring to Mississippi State. Injuries to his hip and elbow limited him to 19 games there, and he played his final collegiate basketball games at Oakland University.
SPIRE alumni often say their years here were the most formative of their lives, personally and professionally. That’s why SPIRE exists. It’s what we do. We couldn’t be more proud of all the achievements of our former b-ballers. Of course, even as you read this, more of that raw talent is arriving that SPIRE will take, hone and send to the next level, whatever the final destination.
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