Built on the assist

As a girl dad, Kobe Bryant put much of his energy into girls and women’s basketball. He coached a girls team, sat courtside at WNBA and college games, and brought a lot of new fans to the women’s game. Jason wanted to help carry that legacy forward.

JK Select began in 2021 as Jason’s way of building on what Kobe started. The first teams took the floor in the Bay Area, close to the Oakland neighborhoods where Jason grew up. The program is built the way a good point guard plays, around the people on the floor. Head coach Armando Pazos runs it day to day, and players get elite competition and coaches who mentor them in the game and in life. Jason has said he wants to put players in front of doctors, judges and teachers as well as college coaches.

Success here means a scholarship that fits the player. More than 65 players have gone on to Division I. Alumni include McDonald’s All-Americans and a Nike Hoop Summit selection, and the 17U team won a national title in 2023.

Jason played baseball before anyone knew him for basketball. He was a catcher for St. Paschal’s in Oakland in middle school and grew up an A’s fan. A catcher sees the whole field and calls the game for everyone else, which is not far from how he would later run an offense.

In January 2026 he brought the JK Select model to the sport, with a national program based in Dallas and Foundation-funded teams at 15U, 16U and 17U. He told The Dallas Morning News that the girls program had laid the foundation for it. He started by finding the right coaches, beginning with 15U head coach Mike Phelps.

The first season was built around development. Players spend as much time on leadership, discipline and respect as they do on hitting, and parents get guidance as their sons move through recruiting and NIL. The 16U team still won the 2026 PBR National Program Invitational.

Kim Lummus Crabtree and Crystal Delahoz were building girls basketball in North Texas long before JK Select arrived. Kim won a state title at Cleburne High School, played four seasons at the University of Texas, coached under Jody Conradt and spent five years on the staff at UC Irvine. She is in the Texas High School Basketball Hall of Fame and founded True Texas Hoops in 2015. Crystal is a former point guard who kept meeting Kim in championship games. In 2018 the two joined forces, and together they built one of the most trusted girls programs in Dallas‑Fort Worth.

Jason’s part was the pass. In February 2026 True Texas Hoops and JK Select launched JK Select South together, with Kim as director of basketball development and coaching and Crystal as director of business operations. Its three Foundation-funded teams play at 15U, 16U and 17U under head coaches Casey Boyd and Matt Garnett. “We’re bringing a proven program model to the South, led by strong female leadership,” Jason said at the launch.

The program’s mission is team before self, and its coaches teach players to put others first. Jason has said that with NIL money now reaching high school, that guidance matters more than ever. “Our job as leaders, we’re supposed to help them navigate these new areas.”