SOUTHPORT, Ind. -- Southport basketball has won with finesse and physicality this season, and maybe a little bit of looks.
Enter junior Sergey Slaughter, who kind of resembles Larry Bird.
“That’s one of the basic things that anybody says to me,” Slaughter said. “I play like him, I look like him.”
Just to add to the storyline, Slaughter was left to choose one number when the season began. Wouldn’t you know it -- No. 33.
“It’s nothing I had really thought about, but when you look at it, it makes sense,” Kyle Simpson, Southport’s basketball coach, said.
“It’s kind of funny because I know he wasn’t the best looking, so at first I get a little giggle,” Slaughter said. “It’s a complement usually because they mean I play like him and have a shot like him. I might have the same hair as him.”
Slaughter’s backstory is just as interesting. He grew up in the Ukraine. After adoption, he moved to the states when he was 9. He didn’t pick up a basketball until much later. He transferred from Triton Central High School after that.
“I started playing for real in fifth grade,” he said. “I couldn’t dribble. I couldn’t do anything besides stand and shoot over people because I was a little bit taller. But eventually -- seventh or eighth grade -- I started picking up on how good I could be. My dad and my coaches all helped me to be the player I am today.”
“He has a love for the game,” Simpson said. “He’s constantly working on his game and honing his skills. To go from 2A to 4A -- the first day of practice he went to the basket and Dut Mabok blocked his shot and I said ‘Ah, welcome to 4A basketball, buddy.’”
Larry Bird chuckled but didn’t want to comment, but Paul George couldn’t resist.
“That’s LB Jr.,” George said when seeing a photo of Slaughter.
George said there are no positives to looking like Larry Bird.
“You don’t want to look like Larry,” he said. “You might want to shoot or play like him, but you don’t want to look like him.”
Simpson said Slaughter getting No. 33 was totally random.
“I didn’t plan it that way, but once you see it and make the comparison, it’s kind of funny,” Simpson said.
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