The moment we’ve all been waiting for is here. By the end of the month, JR Smith will be opening a Team Swish lifestyle store in his hometown of Millstone Township, New Jersey.
In an interview with the NBPA’s Jared Zwerling, Smith detailed how he and his father have been working on the store for years and how it’s all part of him growing up. He says the store will have sneakers and apparel and even a 10-foot hoop for customers to get buckets on while they shop.
Swish wrote about how much the store means to him:
While I had been working on it for a while, it was just the matter of when was the right time. So it just so happens now it is, with the championship, to open my own sneaker store in my hometown of Millstone Township, N.J.
Ever since I was a kid, I always dreamed of having my own sneaker store. When I was growing up, this was when Michael Jordan was in the prime of everything. So a fresh pair of kicks was always everything. It was always about the shoes, so I got attached extremely early.
From a first-person perspective, the newly married NBA champ also talked about how fatherhood has changed him.
A lot has changed for me mentally and materially. I used to in the summertime spend so much money doing a lot of fun stuff. Now, I’m actually consciously trying to save, so we can live how we want to live after basketball. I’ve even sold a few things. More than anything, being in that dad role is more important now. I know I have to leave something for these girls. I don’t want to leave them with bills or anything.
Family is everything to me. Growing up, I didn’t have a lot of friends. All I had was my family.
Keep it locked for more info on the Team Swish store, which will no doubt be unbelievably fun when it opens. Counting the days until Millstone Township becomes the center of the universe and quite possibly the new headquarters for SLAM…
