His joy shone through in the seconds after Silver spoke. He hugged his mom, Chelsea; his godparents; his older sister, Samarra; his younger sister, Jasmyn; and, finally, his dad, Anicet Sr., nicknamed Ace.
AJ asked league officials to use his given name when he was drafted as a way of honoring his father. On his custom-made Kenzo suit, near his left lapel, he wore a pin of the flag of the Republic of the Congo, where his dad is from, and a pin of the flag of Jamaica, where his mom is from. He wore a blue heart-shaped “TC5” pin on his right lapel to honor Terrence Clarke, an older-brother figure also from the Boston area and a standout basketball player in his own right, who died in a car crash in 2021 at the age of 19.
New York Times
