Yusef Aziz puts a quiet Sonic boom into SPU
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The players gathered in a circle around their coach. It was early in the season and it was time for some bonding. Seattle Pacific men's basketball coach Ken Bone asked each player to give his teammates a one-minute autobiography.
Yusef Aziz, a newly arrived transfer from Highline Community College, told his teammates about his father. He told them Zaid Abdul-Aziz had been an All-American at Iowa State, that he had played in the NBA for the Sonics.
"Up to that point he had been very quiet around the team," Bone said this week. "The guys were surprised. They didn't know about Yuey's father. But I think Yuey is very proud of what his father has done."
Abdul-Aziz retired from the NBA two years before Yusef was born. The father's history is related to the son only through photographs, and stories and a few rare videotapes.
Now, the father sits close to the floor at Brougham Pavilion as his son plays. Wearing a green jacket, sweats and a gray SPU cap, legs stretched across the seats in front of him, Abdul-Aziz stoically watches.
"Every night he surprises me," said Abdul-Aziz, a counselor at North Middle School in Everett. "Every night he does something different. One night, he goes in for a layup and, instead of dunking it with two hands, he turns around, double-pumps and jams it backward. I mean he was a good foot above the basket.
"This is a good team for him ... the way everybody works together. Anybody on that team on any night can hurt you. Outside of Gonzaga, I think it's the best thing in the state, and we should support that program."
A generation ago, this was Zaid Abdul-Aziz's game. He was the fourth pick in the 1968 draft and played 10 years in the NBA, including two stints with the Sonics. He averaged a double-double (13.8 points, 11.3 rebounds) for the 1971 Sonics. But you never would know that by looking at him.
He comes quietly to these games, almost incognito.
"My dad really is a low-key guy," Yusef Aziz said. "Down-to-earth. Really modest. Really humble. It's kind of hard for me to even know what my dad did because I've only seen three tapes of his games, two college games and one NBA game. But he doesn't really talk about his career. When we talk about basketball he talks about me. Tells me to rebound and keep moving without the ball. I take his advice because he played in the NBA. I definitely respect him."
It can be hard escaping the shadow of a famous father. Inevitable comparisons and inescapable pressures come with living up to the name. It is the father's job to release the pressure.
"I've never pushed him," Abdul-Aziz said. "We've always worked out together, and I've never told him that I want him to be like this or like that."
Yusef Aziz, a muscular 6-foot-4 Barkley-like presence, plays small forward and is the leading scorer (16.1 points per game) on a team that has won 13 games in a row and is ranked ninth in NCAA Division II. He is one of the inside-outside threats for SPU's multi-dimensional, up-and-down thrill show.
"He has been a dream come true," Bone said. "We thought we were getting someone who could rebound well, who could defend well enough, who wouldn't turn it over much. But we thought that, as far as scoring, we were really going to take a hit. But he's a very sound player. He has great basketball instincts. And his attitude and personality, it couldn't be any better."
Circumstances have forced Aziz, 20, to mature. Bone remembers the Yusef Aziz he saw two years earlier, at Foster High School in Tukwila, a brash, in-your-face kind of player.
"What really turned me off was I thought he was kind of a cocky punk," Bone said.
But after Aziz led Highline to the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges title last season, Bone saw a change. After only one meeting, the SPU coach offered him a scholarship.
"I laid it on him," Bone said. "Told him the way it was here. He just said, 'Yeah, I can do that.' Even though his dreams were to go Division I, like 99 percent of the other kids out there, I think he realized D-II is pretty decent basketball. He would be stepping into a good situation. And I think he wanted to ... be close to his son."
Aziz has a 2-year-old son, Jalen, to support. He has a future beyond basketball to consider.
"His son has been a great point of maturation for him," said Aziz's mother, Tayyibah Taylor, who publishes a Muslim women's magazine in Atlanta. "He has surprised me because he's turned out to be this wonderful, attentive, caring father. He's become very mature and, I think, that's spilled onto the court. He has another perspective now. He seems a lot more grounded."
In the shadow of the big time, his dad watching, his son in the stands, his game refined, his team on fire, Yusef Aziz has grown up.
Steve Kelley can be reached at 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com.