Gone are the days of myths and legends. They’ve been replaced by the age of information, where nothing remains a mystery. Answers are on demand and the collective imagination is stifled by the doom of the scroll. But not a scroll of the past, with record keeping, literature, art or beauty documented on papyrus. A scroll of the present; the screen in perpetuity.

Those days that we have lost captured our attention because of the unknown. Could the tall tales really be that tall? Could Julius Erving really dunk from the free throw line? Did Michael Jordan actually shatter a backboard in Italy? Now we know those rumors to be real. But they used to be just stories, whose truths became a little bit more stretched each time they were told.

A lot of time has gone by since there’s been an enticing basketball riddle. But, finally, there’s a new one. His name is Joe Grahovac.

The story goes that after he had given up on hoops for a few years, he wound up living in his truck and only played ball at 24 Hour Fitness before finally getting noticed by an assistant coach from Fullerton College because his dunks, passes and blocks were on some game-breaker type levels. But is any of it true?

Ahead of a pro day at the NBPA gym in Manhattan where pro scouts will see him up close, we brought Grahovac to the SLAM office to find out.

The 6-10 forward files into our spot with the ill Cali timing. Nothing he does is rushed and all of it is chill, his Santa Ana upbringing still getting brought up even in the chilly dusk of a fall evening in Queens. He spends a few moments joking around with our crew before he throws on his St. Bonaventure uniform. Number 32 on the threads, with his last name caught in the spotlight of our cameras. How did this happen? How did he end up at St. Bons, the apple of Adrian Wojnarowski’s eye? Yeah, that Woj, the man who spent decades breaking stories. Just after Woj retired from that high-profile job, he accepted a job as his alma mater’s men’s basketball general manager. He’s got another unbelievable story to share.

Down the rabbit hole we go with our cork board, red string and evidence all laid out.

A slight smile forming on his face, a grin we learn is a constant with this 23-year-old, Grahovac clears up some of the story by saying, “I wasn’t outside for that long. People make it seem like it was a long-term thing, but it was really, like, a month, month and a half tops. But I was really just enjoying life in its purest form, just learning how to build myself as a man outside of mom’s crib.”

Work, hoop, sleep. Work, hoop, sleep. On repeat.

He found some jobs around town that were physical in nature, but their true benefit was they actually helped him to hone in on his mental. While grinding away on grueling days, he earned some hard-fought tenacity and maturity.

“Joe appreciates everything,” Woj said. “Joe has lived a life that very few players at our level have. He worked baling hay. He worked in a warehouse. He worked in woodworking. He just has a different perspective and an understanding of the doors that basketball is gonna open for him in his life. He’s worked jobs and lived in circumstances that allow him to never take anything for granted.”

He learned a lot about himself in those days and the lessons are still with him.

“Learning how to deal with adversity on your own and not having someone to lean on necessarily, learning how to figure things out, even though you’re frustrated or, not in the best emotional state at times,” Grahovac says about living in his truck and working on his own. “Yeah, doing things that just aren’t fun all the time.”

Alright, so though it’s been exaggerated a little, the truck part of the story did actually happen. Check that off the cork board. The truck leads right into the 24 Hour Fitness part of the story. Did he really spend all his free time there? Was he really discovered there?

Turns out that part is also true. The evidence? A lyricist from California named Daylyt.

The finely attuned hip-hop fan will already know his name because of tracks with J. Cole. Daylyt’s and Cole’s voices have echoed together across “Pi” and “A Plate Of Collard Greens.” But the reason Daylyt can verify Grahovac’s 24 Hour Fitness journey is because the musician has a little bit of boogie to him on the court. He used to play with Grahovac at 24 Hour Fitness.

“I talk to my guy Daylight all the time,” Grahovac confirms. “He always taps in with me, checks in on me. He’s kind of like my OG.”

There were lots of other guys around Grahovac in those moments. Their testimonies can be found in the comment sections of the many social media posts that highlight Grahovac’s unlikely journey. Though we’ve lost the beauty of those handwritten scrolls in these digital days, the sentiments of support are still being shared. Posts about Grahovac are littered with the same kinds of remarks. There’s always someone saying they’ve played with him back in the day or they remember him from the 24 Hour Fitness gym or he was exceptionally nice to their little brother. Gratitude and enthusiasm radiates from Grahovac when he says how much he appreciates all those different people from around Orange County and how much they’ve impacted him.

However, the Daylyt scouting report stands out as one-of-a-kind.

“He’s just a glitch, bro, the way he plays basketball,” Grahovac smiles. “He’s just trying to cheat the game. He’s doing backwards side-steps. I don’t even know, dude.”

To hear this man call another player a glitch is a bit surprising, considering how he hoops. But it goes right into what Woj has been saying about him the whole time.

“With a lot of players at many levels, you have to tell them sometimes you’re not nearly as good as you think you are and sort of recalibrate their expectations of how they should be playing and how they should be contributing and how realistic they should be about some things,” Woj says. “Joe is uniquely different in that. You’re constantly telling Joe, ‘Joe, you have no idea how good you are.’ And I think, at times, folks encourage him to take more on offensively, ‘go and beat your guy off the dribble.’ And he wants certainly to stay within the system, but Joe’s somebody who knows how to live life, he knows how to treat people, he knows how to work. His work ethic is second to none. There’s been more than once this year where we had multiple workouts in a day and I see him back in the gym at 8:00 at night. And say, ‘Joe, you gotta go back you gotta go to bed.’”

It’s the standard for kids these days to post their own highlights right after every game they play, obsessively watching clip after clip of themselves. Grahovac doesn’t do that so he doesn’t understand that he looks like a glitch, too. A big who can pass, defend, run and jump and who isn’t yearning for the spotlight is exceedingly rare these days.

Though Grahovac wasn’t watching footage of himself play against Daylyt at 24 Hour Fitness, two other people were. Perry Webster, the head coach of Fullerton College (CA) was shown a clip of Grahovac playing at 24 by one of his assistant coaches, Marshall Johnson. They immediately snapped him to play one season of JUCO. In that one season as a Fullerton Hornet, he put up averages of 15.9 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.9 assists in 33 games, on 62/39/29 shooting splits.

The red string on our cork board is all lining up. He did live in his truck and he did get discovered at 24 Hour Fitness and he does have a mentality that’s opposite to other ballplayers of his generation, which is its own riddle.

From that point, Woj soon learned about Grahovac and it wasn’t long until they started talking. Grahovac’s first-ever plane ride was to St. Bonaventure’s campus in upstate New York. That trip also marked his first time seeing snow, an experience so tranquil that it helped to eventually guide him to the Bonnies.

Now that he’s playing under Coach Mark Schmidt, his understanding for the game has expanded completely. He’s been learning about the strategy of high level hoops while maintaining the instincts that got him noticed in the first place.

“Coach Schmidt has given me a whole new perspective on basketball, when it comes to making the right reads, you know, X’s and O’s, being able to read the defense while you’re out there and, and still playing hard at the same time,” Grahovac says.

“Joe is relentless in his pursuit of maximizing the opportunity he has at Bonaventure with our coaching staff and I think his future is limitless,” Woj adds. “He’s gonna be a professional basketball player, he’s gonna make a very good living at it. The question will be at what level?”

Here we are outside of the rabbit hole yet again. The Joe Grahovac myth has been busted and proven to be true. He’s played a handful of games for St. Bons so far and already has four games of double-digit points, including a 15 point and 9 rebound performance against the Bloomsburg Huskies. He’s gone from barely playing high school ball to ending up in his truck for a few weeks to now playing Division 1 college hoops.

At our office, Grahovac says it’s still “surreal” and that he’s “determined” to continue his ascent. His next steps won’t just be rumors floating around the corners of half-empty gyms in California. We’re gonna see him work and wherever this journey winds to, his story is just getting started.