Mikey Williams - I'm Ready

Mikey Williams is not yet in high school but his social following is bigger than the heavy majority of the country’s top juniors and seniors. And at just 14 years old, the Cali native already has his sights set on the league. We spent a day with the youngest in charge to learn all about his plans for what comes next.

- Ian Pierno

If you saw Mikey Williams hooping under the sun on a San Diego blacktop, you may not recognize him. He’s tall for his age at 6-3, but his height isn’t necessarily off the charts. Like most of the kids in his neighborhood playing outside, he uses the court as an oasis to kick back and enjoy the game at its purest form. He laughs, talks trash and hollers at friends passing through.

A year ago, Williams was just another SoCal hooper on the rise.

Things changed when he joined the North Coast Blue Chips and played alongside Bronny James. Cameras flooded the baseline for his first game at the Charlotte Convention Center in North Carolina; seconds into warm-ups, Williams threw down an East Bay dunk.

“Who’s this kid?” was the unanimous response from the soldout crowd.

Cell phones came out and Google searches began.

It took less than a day for Mikey Williams, who was three weeks removed from his 14th birthday, to become a household name. He received life and basketball advice from LeBron James and had Quavo pull up to sit courtside at one of his games the following week.

As the buckets poured in, so did Williams’ following—at press time in April, he had 577,000 followers on Instagram and more YouTube searches than half of the top-10 seniors in the country over the past three months.