Rondae Hollis-Jefferson brings own fan club

BROOKLYN - You would have thought Rondae Hollis-Jefferson was from Chelsea, not Chester.

As the Portland Trail Blazers contemplated their 23rd overall pick, the thinning crowd at the Barclays Center began a small, strong chant:

Rondae! Rondae! Rondae!

Hollis-Jefferson raised a fist in appreciative response.

Seconds later, when the Blazers chose him, the arena erupted.

Many of the fans were Chester schoolchildren who wrote essays. Hollis-Jefferson's representatives chose 40 winners, for whom they provided transportation to the draft and secured entrance.

"I'm a big community guy, and I want my people, where I'm from, to experience it," said Hollis-Jefferson, who played two seasons at Arizona.

Later in the night, Portland traded him to the Brooklyn Nets, with Steve Blake in exchange for Mason Plumlee and No. 41 pick Pat Connaughton.

The cheering enhanced the experience for the people closest to him: his mother, Rylanda Hollis; his grandfather, Carl Hollis; his best friend, Tymier Butler; and, of course, his big brother, former Temple star Rahlir Hollis-Jefferson, who spent last season with the Sixers' D-League team, the Delaware 87ers.

"It was a beautiful thing," said his mother, blinking back tears. "Spectacular."

That was an apt description of the attire at the Hollis-Jefferson table.

Rondae's red-and-black checked pants stole the NBA draft's annual fashion show:

"Red is my favorite color," he said. "I like different."

Rylanda wore a sparkling red blouse; Rahlir, of course, a cherry-and-white (and black) tie.

"We must have had 60 or 70 people here," Rahlir said. "It was really great."

One of the Sixers likely to benefit from the inside scoring presence of first-round pick Jahlil Okafor is forward Jerami Grant, who sported a Sixers hat as his brother Jerian, taken 19th, landed with the Knicks.

"Hey, I'm definitely excited to have him here," Jerami said of Okafor, who played with him on Team USA's under-19 FIBA squad. "Obviously, he was the best guy left on the board at No. 3. What sets him apart is his ability to score the ball. That's the key right there. It'll free a lot of other players up."

Before announcing the Sixers' first-round pick, NBA commissioner Adam Silver issued a heartfelt tribute to longtime Philadelphia statistician Harvey Pollack, a Hall of Fame enshrinee who died Tuesday at 93.