J.R. Smith has two NBA championship rings. He has a Sixth Man of the Year Award. He has spent 16 seasons on some of the biggest stages in professional basketball alongside some of the greatest players of his generation.
And according to Smith himself, none of it compares to what just happened in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Smith, 40, graduated from North Carolina A&T State University, completing a college degree that he set aside two decades ago when the NBA came calling. It is a milestone he describes as possibly the most meaningful achievement of his career, and the journey to get here is as compelling as anything he did on the court.
Smith was a first-round pick in the 2004 NBA Draft. He had committed to play basketball for Roy Williams at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but the opportunity to go straight to the league, as was permitted by NBA rules at the time, changed everything.
The diploma would have to wait.
It waited 17 years. In 2021, Smith sent shockwaves through the sports world when he enrolled at North Carolina A&T as a student and joined the Aggies’ golf team, a detail that underscored just how seriously he was taking this new chapter.
He wasn’t there for the optics. He was there to learn, to compete, and to finish what he had started.
“When I speak the name of A&T, it comes with such pride and joy to my heart. It saved me from a point where I was going to destruct from the inside out,” J.R. Smith told CBS 17.
North Carolina A&T, one of the most storied HBCUs in the country, gave Smith more than a degree. In his own words, it gave him purpose at a moment when he needed it most. The decision to enroll was not just about finishing an academic credential; it was about finding solid ground after life away from the game.
Smith played with Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, Jason Kidd, and most famously LeBron James. He was a key contributor to the Cleveland Cavaliers’ historic 2016 NBA Championship, the franchise’s first title, and closed his playing career with a ring alongside James in Los Angeles with the Lakers in 2020.
By any measure, his basketball life was complete.
But this graduation is something different. It is the story of a man who recognized what was missing, had the humility to go back and get it, and found a community in the process that he describes with genuine love and pride.
Aggie Pride, indeed.
Photo Credit: Instagram/TeamSwish
