Patrick Baldwin Jr. is a high-school prospect with NBA franchise-changing potential

Patrick Baldwin is still in high school but he’s an elite prospect, already facing big decisions about his collegiate and NBA future.

It was January 2020, and there were 45 minutes before Hamilton High School faced off against Chaminade High School at the Highland Shootout, a tournament featuring the top Illinois and St. Louis high school teams, young fans clamored outside the Hamilton locker room. They hoped to catch a glimpse of the Chargers’ rising star, 17-year-old Patrick Baldwin Jr., and get a photograph, an autograph — anything.

Meanwhile, Baldwin Jr. and his teammates had snuck in through the back entrance. His teammates, donning their warmups, climbed up to the bleachers, while Baldwin holed up in the dimly lit locker room. Alone, the number one prospect in the high school class of 2021 (according to 247 Sports) paced from wall-to-wall, dribbling a basketball, sweat beads rolling down his face.

As the game approached, Hamilton head coach Andy Cerroni walked in and out of the locker room at least 10 times to check in with his star player. Yes, he was good. No, he didn’t need anything. Cerroni thought his star player seemed dialed in.

Hamilton hadn’t played against Division 1 players all year, and now it was set to face off against Chaminade High School, which boasted four Division 1 talents. Baldwin Jr. was used to performing in front of Hamilton’s raucous student section, but here, there were 3,800 fans who came to see a future NBA star: Patrick Baldwin Jr.

As the game started, his nerves showed. On the first two possessions, Baldwin Jr. coughed up back-to-back turnovers, while Chaminade hit back-to-back triples, making it 6-0. Some fans turned on him: Overrated! Overrated! Overrated!

“I’m thinking: We’re just gonna get frickin’ run out of this gym,” Cerroni said.

Baldwin Jr. wouldn’t let that happen. He shook the nerves off, finishing with 29 points on 9-of-12 shooting in a 70-57 win. It was just one highlight in a season full of them. Before COVID-19 cut the season short, Baldwin Jr. was averaging 24.3 points, 10.8 rebounds, and 4.2 assists, leading the Chargers to a 23-3 record, and a sectional championship win. His play earned him the Wisconsin Gatorade Player of the Year nomination in late March.

After the game ended, hundreds of fans crowded outside the locker room while Baldwin Jr. handled his post-game interviews. Once Baldwin Jr. left the locker room, sweat drying on his face, he signed autographs for fans, who formed a line stretching 50 or so feet, until the end of the following game’s first half.

Afterward, Josh King, a 6-foot-7 Hamilton assistant coach who doubles as Baldwin Jr.’s de-facto bodyguard, escorted him out of the building.

King compared Baldwin Jr.’s experience that night to being a child star.

“There was a moment where it was tough for him,” King said. “No one ever thinks about the negativity that can come from flat-out mean people. For Patrick, there was a point in time where he was learning how to kind of understand that and learn from it. After every game, there is a crowd and there are some good people there. And then there are people taking advantage of who he is. Patrick’s such a nice kid where he says: ‘No problem, no problem, no problem.’ He’s great in that regard. He just is so proper and nice, but then there are people who are in it for the wrong reasons.”

What makes Patrick Baldwin Jr. such a special basketball prospect?

Baldwin Jr. grew up in an athletic family. His mom, Shawn Baldwin, was a middle blocker for Northwestern’s volleyball team. Shawn’s father played division three basketball and her grandfather was a reserve on DePaul’s 1945 NIT championship team. Baldwin Sr. was Northwestern’s starting point guard from 1990 through 1994, ending his career leading the Wildcats in all-time steals and assists, and Top 20 in scoring, before playing professionally in Croatia. When he retired from playing, he coached at various stops around the Midwest. Since 2017, he’s been head coach of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers.

Baldwin Jr. attended his first game when he was eight days old. When little Patrick was in second-grade, Baldwin Sr. “hired” his son to be a waterboy for Loyola, where he was an assistant coach at the time — allowing him to sit at the end of the bench, hand out water, and tuck into timeout huddles. This up-close-and-personal look sparked Baldwin Jr.’s love for basketball.

An improbable upset cemented Baldwin Jr.’s love for the game. After Derek Pardon sank a buzzer-beating layup against Michigan at Welsh-Ryan Arena on March 1, 2017, Northwestern fans, players, and coaches formed a dog-pile at mid-court. Meanwhile, Baldwin Sr. rushed toward his son and gave him a bear hug.

“That was a turning point in my career because I always know my dad would always be there for me, he would always support me, whether I’m a good basketball player or not,” Baldwin Jr. said. “And then that also made me want it more because I love the way he coaches, it was super special, it was a turning point where I realized I wanted to take basketball seriously.”

Being around college sports for so long has also helped him handle the hype.

“He knows how much work is required,” Shawn Baldwin said. “He never gets too high or too low with articles, rankings, it’s really helped keep him focused, and keep him being a kid and enjoying the moment.”

Patrick Baldwin Sr. trained his son. He taught him to wait until after fifth grade to launch three-point shots and to dribble, despite being the tallest kid in his grade every year. But there reached a point in time when he decided to allow him to learn on his own. He sent him to collegiate basketball camps around the Midwest, including Missouri State, Northwestern, and Loyola.

“There were times where I would be rebounding for him or putting him through a couple drills,” Baldwin Sr. said. “Then, there were times where I said: Hey, go out to the gym and figure this out yourself. That way, you create the love. Then, he did the camps and I think that was a huge thing for him, going to the local basketball camps, those little things if I wasn’t teaching him individually, he was getting teaching elsewhere, so I think that molded him to the way he is today.”

Now, it is difficult to poke holes in Baldwin Jr.’s game. The 6-foot-10 Baldwin Jr. is the epitome of “positionless” basketball. He dribbles and passes like a point guard, shoots like a Splash Brother, and towers over most forwards and even some centers.

On a normal day, Baldwin Jr. wakes up at 7:30 am, eats breakfast — usually two to three eggs, one piece of toast with jelly, bacon, or sausage, a bowl of cereal, a yogurt, and a glass of orange juice. Then, he takes to his four-car garage, where he lifts to a playlist of Chief Keef, Drake, and Lil Baby. Later in the day, he heads to the Hamilton High School gym, where he executes a routine he borrowed from Phil Beckner, a Team USA assistant coach: 100 pound dribbles, 100 twist dribbles, 100 alternate dribbles, 100 in-and-out dribbles. The goal with this drill is two-fold: First, “Break the floor,” thus closing the gap for the defender to poke the ball loose. Second, “bounce the ball, not your body,” thus creating more effective ways to drive to the rim or create shots for teammates.

“This summer was more about being more than a shooter because that was one of the knocks on me coming out of the summer,” Baldwin Jr. said.

Once he’s finished working out, he heads home, where he usually dissects film of NBA stars he aims to emulate — Jayson Tatum, Khris Middleton, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, Devin Booker.

“A lot of the savvy scorers,” he said. “Not necessarily the craziest athletes but they get it done because of their footwork. I’ll try to steal a couple moves that I see, ask my dad what he thinks of them, and then just continue to work on those moves that I see, just being creative with it, because if you can be creative with it, there’s not many ways people can stop you versus a guy that has one or two moves, just being obsessed with basketball.”

His next goal is to improve his defense, particularly as it relates to versatility.

“If I could become that elite two-way player, that’s really gonna make me an elite caliber player,” Baldwin Jr. said. “There’s a lot of players that can get it done offensively, there’s a lot of players that can get it done defensively as well, but if you could put it together, that’s when you get a really special talent, franchise-changers, game-changers.”

Baldwin Jr. was doing the dishes in the kitchen of his Sussex home in May 2020, when he heard the rattle of his dad’s keychain and backpack. His dad dropped his backpack, tapped his son on the shoulder, and extended his hand. His dad congratulated him, then offered him a scholarship to the University of Milwaukee. His mom, Shawn Baldwin, sitting at the kitchen table, broke down crying, as did Baldwin Jr.

“He told me about the progress he has seen in me from the time he put the ball in my hands,” Baldwin Jr. told the Chicago Tribune in May 2020. “He said whether I decide to play for him or not, he will always love me. He really does hope I choose to play for him.”

On Feb. 8, Baldwin Jr. made his long-awaited return to Northwestern for a game against Evanston Township High School. Hamilton High School lost 70-68 and Baldwin Jr. notched 25 points and 16 rebounds. Despite Northwestern having a game that same day in New Jersey — they were playing against Rutgers — head coach Chris Collins was seated courtside to watch Baldwin Jr. Baldwin Jr. cherished the unofficial visit at Welsh-Ryan Arena, which was once a 10-minute bike ride from his childhood house in Evanston.

“He loves Evanston, man,” said Andy Cerroni, Hamilton High School head coach. “We went back this year and he was just giddy, he was so excited about going back, seeing the new facilities. We got there and everybody knew him — all the ushers and worked the game and that. And he just loved it. The minute we got there, he had his uniform on, shooting in the new facility, just loving life, loving life.”

As a high school freshman, he was the youngest player to ever have received a scholarship offer from Duke University, which was “crazy” and “super special.” He visited Duke on February 22, 2020, watching them beat Virginia Tech 88-64. On the trip, he also spoke with assistant coach, Jon Scheyer, who grew up in the Chicagoland suburbs, and head coach Mike Krzyzewski, who grew up in the city of Chicago. His former AAU teammate, Jalen Johnson, who is a year older than Baldwin Jr., will play for Duke next season.

By May 9, 2020, Baldwin Jr. announced his top college choices, in no particular order: North Carolina, Duke, UCLA, Virginia, Michigan, Kentucky, Georgetown, Northwestern, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Wisconsin. By early next year, he plans on cutting down his list to five college choices. By October or November, he plans to make a decision. He admitted playing in the Horizon League would be a downgrade, but he acknowledges his dad would have his best interests in mind.

“I’m in the middle of one of my hardest moments, and that is deciding whether I want to play for my dad or not,” Baldwin Jr. said. “Because he has been there through my ups and downs, he has supported me, and me wanting to play for him is a big thing for both of us. But it’s tough to make a decision because there are so many others in the mix for me right now. And, that’s the toughest decision I’ve had to make in my life.”

The last time he’s had to pick a school was when he was going into his freshman year of high school. His parents helped him parse through his options. One month before school started, the Baldwin family took a tour of Hamilton High School. During the tour, the coaching staff catered towards Baldwin Jr. — producing a highlight package of him, creating a montage of their raucous student section, and even photoshopping a Hamilton jersey onto a picture of Baldwin Jr.

Their courting enticed him, but what officially sold Baldwin Jr. was the family dynamic rooted in the Hamilton coaching staff: Andy Cerroni, the head coach, had a son, Cameron, and a son-in-law, Josh King as an assistant coach. So, one week before school started, Baldwin Jr. chose to attend Hamilton High School.

“From a family standpoint, having that alignment lines up with their family lifestyle. They’re very family-oriented,” said King.

When Patrick Baldwin Sr. accepted the head coaching job at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the Baldwin family moved from Evanston, Illinois, to Sussex, Wisconsin, Baldwin Jr. was entering high school. Friend groups were already formed, niches already found. Baldwin Jr. had neither. So, on and off the court, he was just trying to blend in, just trying to be one of the guys. Largely because of this, the team started 7-6.

His new basketball team did what they could to help him fit in. On the first day of school, Coach Cerroni had his teammates guide him to previously unknown classrooms, eat lunch with him, and take him to practice. After Friday practices, players hosted team dinners. As he chowed down on cheese pizza, Baldwin Jr. opened up, talking about school (his favorite subject is history and has maintained a 3.62 GPA throughout high school) and the community work in which he’s involved (he has volunteered locally on behalf of youth basketball programs and an elementary school reading initiative). Afterward, Baldwin Jr. and his teammates would take to the basement, where they playfully wrestled in what they deemed “fight night.”

“He’s so young, then coming into a school and everyone is looking at him as some sort of celebrity,” said Hamilton High School teammate and recent graduate Jayson Davis. “It just took some time, then he eventually opened up to all of us. Now, we’re all really good friends. He’s in the gym a lot, not gonna lie, but when we are hanging out off the court, he’s just like a normal kid. Everyone thinks he’s a celebrity, but he’ll sit there, play video games, eat pizza, wrestle.”

Slowly but surely, Baldwin Jr. settled in. With the Chargers down against Wauwatosa East by seven with two minutes left, Baldwin Jr. scored multiple buckets to tie the game. With a few seconds remaining, Cerroni ran an off-ball play for Baldwin Jr. He missed a corner 3-pointer but was fouled. Under pressure, Baldwin Jr. sank three free throws.

Hamilton High School lost in the third round of the Wisconsin State Tournament, but Baldwin Jr. came to a realization.

“It was just kind of a stepping stone as far as the season goes, and it was great for him to realize he was our guy — he is our guy — and he responded the rest of the season,” Cerroni said.

At last summer’s Peach Jam, Patrick Baldwin Jr. started off hot. In the first half of his first game, the rising sophomore dropped 18 points for his AAU team, Phenom University. But then, on one play, everything fell apart. Baldwin Jr. fired a three when POP! He landed on a defender’s foot, then collapsed to the floor. The injury? A twisted ankle. In the next half, he was limited to four points and over the next three games, his struggles continued.

“After that first game, I went in a spiral downhill that I couldn’t pull myself out of,” Baldwin Jr. said. “When [the twisted ankle] happened, it destroyed me internally for a couple of games. I just wasn’t really feeling myself. I was second-guessing movements. I wasn’t as explosive. I didn’t know what I could do. A lot of that was in my head, negative self-talk. I was limiting myself in my head. And I kind of used my ankle as a way to satisfy the negative self-talk.”

After the game, Antonio Curro, Phenom University head coach, told Baldwin Jr.: “This is a blip on the radar. At the end of the day, five years from now, no one’s ever gonna know what you had to battle through, and I’m proud of you.”

“He’s a young kid and in this world of social media, he just gets picked apart,” Curro said. “He gets to high school, and he’s arguably the best player in the country. So, everything he’s ever done is under a microscope. We need to understand that these are young kids and they grow up into young men, and at the end of the day, maybe they don’t perform to the best of their ability. He can’t walk into a gym without 20 people coming up to him, he can’t leave a gym without 20 people coming up to him. He’s grabbed at, he’s pulled at like a piece of meat. But human beings are real. That means they struggle with basic things like we struggle with. Think about the standard a 16-year-old has to have every single day. That’s not fair.”

Before long, Baldwin Jr. got back to work. He started listening to a YouTube channel dedicated to positive self-talk. He devoured old film of himself when he was a freshman and sophomore, when he was, well, having fun. Not only did he get back into the gym with his dad, but confided in him off the court.

“I was just continuing to reassure him about himself,” Baldwin Sr. said. “He still knew he was a good player, but there were times where I was just there for him. So whenever he needed to talk to me about anything, whatever was coming up, I think that was the most important time for him — and us, as a father and son. Me having his back no matter what.”

The next week, Baldwin Jr. participated in a Team USA minicamp in Colorado Springs. He dominated and led his team to the championship.

“I don’t think I realized how beneficial turning it around right after Peach Jam was for me,” Baldwin Jr. said. “I think turning it around with Team USA, a place where I felt comfortable, a place where I knew the coaches I don’t think I realized how big of a bounce-back it was, but now that you said it, it’s definitely helped me a lot.”

Later in the summer, Baldwin Jr. was named one of Hamilton High Schools’ team captains. Throughout the summer, the captains worked with J.P. Nerbun, a leadership mentor and CEO of Thrive on Challenge, whose goal is to help develop relationships, raise standards, and build character. He started a captain counsel, which would include five captains. From there, each of the five captains were assigned a specific leadership role. Baldwin Jr.’s role? “Lead by example.”

When the season started, he wasn’t afraid to stop in Coach Cerroni’s office and question a faulty tactic and make a suggestion. One game, with Hamilton High School up big, the team’s manager who had also been the team’s statistician for the last five years, Jonathan Molinksi, checked into the game. The manager swished a three-point shot from the left-wing. Once the game ended, Baldwin Jr. lifted Molinski on his shoulders and carried him off the court.

“Did you see Patrick on the bench? Did you see the clip? You gotta watch, they show our bench,” Cerroni said. “After he scores, Patrick’s gotta be one of the most excited guys on the bench celebrating for him. And that’s him. That’s him to a T. Watch that. For him, it’s just awesome, he cares about his teammates.”

After leading Hamilton High School to a sectional championship win as a junior, Baldwin Jr. stood on a ladder, cutting down the net, when he peered into the crowd. A young boy — in kindergarten or first grade — donned a white t-shirt, with the name “Baldwin Jr.” written in Sharpie on the back.

“I never got to meet the kid, but I would like to meet him,” Baldwin Jr. said. “When I first saw the picture, my immediate reaction was: That was pretty cool. But then, I remembered in the moment, that a kid is probably just picking up a basketball, and I’m one of his role models, so that’s a pretty cool moment.”

Fans regularly flood the Baldwin’s mailbox with memorabilia (Patrick, please sign! My kid is a huge fan!) — which Baldwin Jr. refuses to sign because it would spur a recruiting violation. In a particularly creepy experience, a fan, posing as a media member, texted Baldwin Jr. under the guise of scheduling an interview.

“When I’m at home, I don’t want to be treated like a basketball player,” Baldwin Jr. said. “I want to be treated like a kid. Then, when I’m at a basketball game, I could sign some autographs, talk to a couple of people. But when I’m at home, I like my privacy, being at home, doing my own thing. So when I’m at home, I don’t want to be treated like a basketball player, I want to be treated like a kid.”

By eighth grade, the hype started gravitating towards him. The first BallisLife video featured an eighth grade Baldwin Jr., (titled “8th Grader Has RANGE & VISION! 6’5 14 Year Old Patrick Baldwin Jr. Highlights!”). When he stumbled upon it, he rushed over to his mom and showed her. Before she could watch, though, he warned her: “But don’t read the comments.”

“So, as a parent, I had to read the comments,” his mom, Shawn Baldwin, said. “He naively read some of them, and he knew that would hurt me as a parent. For him to be that young, and say that, I thought it was so thoughtful of him. He’s for sure not obsessed, but people will send him things sometimes, and he’ll read it. But they’re all good teaching moments, that you can’t control what people say, think, all you can control is that you’re working hard, that you just have to enjoy playing basketball, and hopefully, at one point, they’ll change their minds.”

His parents do as much as they can to block out the external noise from drowning out what remains of their son’s childhood. They didn’t buy him a cell phone until Christmas of his freshman season. Before he’s allowed to leave the house, he has to finish a list of chores. One game, 30 or so fans lugged large cardboard fatheads of Patrick’s face to the game with a strip of duct tape across it for Patrick to sign before the game.

“When it’s above and beyond like that,” Shawn Baldwin said. “We have to make sure the school is protecting him or having a coach recognize that, so it doesn’t reflect poorly on Patrick. One of [the large cardboard fatheads] is fine, but 30 is too much.”

To take his mind off the game, he goes on long bike rides with his family. He is a talented sketch artist, currently working on a 1000 x 1 scaled portrait of the Titanic, as well as a competitive UNO card game and NBA 2k gamer. He binges T.V. shows Black-ish and The Office.

Before one summer tournament going into his junior season, Baldwin Jr. and King had time to kill, so they stopped at an arcade. For hours, they played Wii games, then chowed down on foot-longs at Subway — a Baldwin Jr. pregame staple — before Baldwin Jr. spearheaded the Chargers to victory.

“Honestly, he’s talked to me about it on more than one occasion, like: Gosh, we gotta go back [to the arcade],” King said. “So, like, I think he’s just a great kid — but he is a kid. He likes to have fun, he’s always in a good mood, he’s Patrick, he’s still just a kid.”

Soon, he won’t be a kid — he’ll go to college, then off to the NBA. But for now, Patrick Baldwin Jr. dreams of leading Hamilton High School to their first state championship win — then celebrating at the arcade with his teammates and family.