Another season brings another remarkable name from Dallas, as the North Texas region solidifies its reputation as one of the NBA's most fertile talent pipelines. While the city's streets may appear ordinary at first glance, they continue to produce league-shaping basketball players at an extraordinary rate.
The Heart of Texas Basketball
The main highway through Dallas cuts through the centre of Texas, leading southward to the epicentre of the state's basketball excellence. As the road slopes downward, the city's cosmopolitan polish gives way to neighbourhoods separated from downtown by sun-baked concrete and beige landscapes. Here, behind chain-link fences and in yards worn down to dirt, something remarkable is happening.
Welcome to Duncanville
Deep within this suburb lies a high school system that has transformed into an NBA production line. Duncanville isn't an anomaly but rather the clearest expression of how seriously North Texas approaches basketball development. While Dallas serves as the incubator, Duncanville functions as the operational headquarters.
Two of the nation's most significant high school basketball institutions reside here. First, Duncanville High School contains more basketball history than some professional arenas, with state championships in 2019, 2021, and 2025 serving as testament to its excellence. The program has produced six NBA professionals in just five years, led by rising stars Anthony Black and Ron Holland II.
However, not all achievements have been straightforward. The University Interscholastic League stripped Duncanville's 2022 Class 6A championship due to eligibility violations involving improper enrollment and academic issues, including concerns about Black's grades. Had that title remained, Duncanville would have achieved three consecutive state championships, a distinction unmatched by any other Texas Class 6A boys' program in the modern era.
A National Powerhouse
During that same season, Duncanville became the first Texas school since 2010 to be crowned MaxPreps National Champion. Throughout the early 2020s, Duncanville and nearby Richardson High School dominated not only Texas rankings but also claimed the top two spots nationally at one point. These two programs alone featured three future NBA lottery picks and produced five NBA players between them.
Since 2020, the Dallas-Fort Worth area has generated multiple NBA lottery selections:
- Anthony Black (sixth overall in 2023)
- Cason Wallace (tenth overall in 2023)
- Ron Holland II (fifth overall in 2024)
- Tre Johnson (sixth overall in 2025)
Beyond these top selections, North Texas has cultivated rising stars drafted outside the lottery positions, including Liam McNeeley, Keyonte George, Ja'Kobe Walter, and Marcus Sasser. The region has also produced two genuine superstars: Philadelphia 76ers' Tyrese Maxey, who starred at South Garland High School, and 2021 number one pick Cade Cunningham, both of whom became All-Star starters this year.
The Cathedral of Sweat
Beyond the high school, the highway leads to Duncanville Fieldhouse, the second basketball mecca in this remarkable region. For decades, this state-of-the-art sports facility with six full-sized hardwood courts has functioned as both proving ground and sanctuary. College coaches, NBA scouts, and generations of future professionals have cycled through its courts long before anyone knew their names, creating a living archive of Dallas basketball history.
These tournaments transform Duncanville Fieldhouse into a reunion space where former teammates reconnect across courts, debating past performances and adding new layers to the region's basketball mythology. The lineage extends beyond this single facility.
Faith Family Academy's Rise
Less than fifteen minutes from Duncanville sits Faith Family Academy, positioned between South Dallas' Laurel Land Cemetery and the vibrant Big T Bazaar mall. Like Duncanville, Faith Family has established itself among America's most accomplished and relentlessly dominant boys' basketball programs.
Between 2019 and 2024, the school assembled four UIL state championships, moving upward through classifications and defying the gravitational pull of Texas high school sports. This achievement was followed by another three-peat in Class 4A from 2022 through 2024, placing Faith Family among the select few Texas schools to win three consecutive state titles.
Last season, this Oak Cliff-based charter school entered the Elite Interscholastic Basketball Conference and promptly claimed the league championship. In current state rankings, Faith Family alone places two players inside Texas' top seven: twins Gavin and Gallagher Placide, both signed to play together at Wake Forest.
The Dallas Basketball Ecosystem
What makes Dallas different is its unusually integrated basketball ecosystem. Unlike most major cities where elite talent fragments between private schools, sneaker circuits, and suburban flight, North Texas operates differently. Public schools like Duncanville, charter schools like Faith Family, AAU programs, and prep powerhouses all orbit the same geography, often the same neighbourhoods, feeding one another rather than competing.
This integration creates rich density where talent remains local longer, playing against peers of equal calibre night after night. For thousands of young athletes here, basketball represents one of the few systems that still rewards imagination with something resembling upward mobility.
Former Players Investing in the Future
Former NBA players have returned to Dallas to invest in its basketball future, most notably Jermaine O'Neal, who founded Dynamic Prep. The program has started this season strongly, earning the number one spot in the SC Next Top 25 team rankings. Dynamic Prep is led by the top-ranked national prospect in the 2027 class: Marcus Spears Jr, son of Dallas Cowboys legend Marcus Spears.
Perhaps most integral to the region's success is the deep-rooted AAU culture in South Dallas. At its centre is Urban DFW Elite, led by Jade Colbert, the first and only Black woman to serve as an AAU CEO in the country. This program has become its own pipeline, producing NBA talent including Marcus Sasser, Darrell Arthur, and Dink Pate.
Shaping the Modern NBA
Dallas has consistently molded modern NBA wings: long, pliable athletes who blur positional lines. These 6ft 6in to 6ft 9in initiators defend multiple positions, handle the ball, create off the dribble, and orchestrate offense in real-time. Players like Cunningham and Black represent the architects of the new game, excelling as two-way threats in a league that prizes size and versatility above all else.
This season, the Dallas pipeline has reached the league's highest tier, with Cunningham and Maxey sitting among MVP candidates while George continues his ascent toward stardom. Even last season's NBA Finals featured two area players facing off: Wallace for Oklahoma City and Myles Turner for Indiana.
Currently, nineteen of the league's thirty teams roster at least one North Texas player, from MVP candidates to rising stars. While these numbers might not seem extraordinary for a large metropolitan area, Dallas has often been overlooked as a basketball city compared with traditional powerhouses like Atlanta and New York.
Those roads all trace back to the same kind of Dallas neighbourhood: unremarkable stretches of urban sprawl where some of Texas's most consequential basketball institutions call home. No coastline, just churches and cemeteries. And hallowed basketball gyms where one generation after another learns the work. In all that ordinariness, the extraordinary has emerged. Of all the different roads that lead to the NBA, Dallas has become the most heavily traveled highway in the state.
