- September 2016, Zion was playing basketball,
and he rolled his ankle.
So we went to the doctor in September,
and it was truly a really bad roll.
The X-ray revealed cancer cells. My heart dropped.
So I would say in August, when we were preparing
to go back to school, we found out that we had to prepare
for a different journey.
We had to prepare for amputation,
because that's the only thing that would save Zion's life.
So on September 12th, Zion had his right -
below the knee, below the calf - amputated.
I received a call about a couple of weeks ago,
from Boys & Girls Club, that there may be an opportunity
for me and my family to go to San Francisco
to attend a Golden State Warriors game.
- Surprise! [Laughs.]
- Here's your boarding passes.
And guess what?
We're going to San Francisco,
to a Golden State Warriors game!
- Seriously?
- Thank you, thank you for thinking of us.
We've been through such a journey in the last
couple of months, and this all just is amazing,
and we just wanna say thank you.
Thank you, for everyone, for United.
Thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts.
- When I first heard the story, it was like, man, you know?
Like this kid went through a lot.
Just like looking at this type of situation,
and then I put two and two together,
and it was like, O.K., you know,
this is in a sense of what I had to go through.
I know he's from Chicago, I'm from Peoria.
There's always gonna be a connection with Illinois.
I know he was a captain of his high school
varsity basketball team.
How it relates to my story is I think we were both
potential amputee patients.
That was the connection that I was kinda putting
in place with Zion.
For me, going through my knee injury,
dislocating every ligament in my knee
and possibly ending my career, you know,
never playing basketball again.
After the surgery, seeing how deformed my knee looked,
I was sitting in the hospital, lady comes in,
and was like, "We need to run some blood tests."
And she said, "Possibly, if you damaged your artery
in the back of your knee,
we may have to amputate your leg."
And then I found out that I was all good.
After we ran the tests, we got the results back
fairly quickly, and it was just a sense of relief.
- [Pilot] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to San Francisco,
the local time here is 8:18.
- Being a 17-year-old kid, having your youth,
feeling healthy and everything,
and then [snaps fingers] like that,
you know, you end up losing your leg.
But to have the mindset to stay positive,
and not dig yourself into a hole and just say,
"This shouldn't happen to me, I'm done, I give up."
You know, to keep fighting through that, that's courageous.
Very grateful that I was able to overcome
and be in a situation to where I'm at right now,
to still be playing basketball.
It wasn't easy, I'm not perfect. There was days I went,
and I was ready to quit, ready to give up.
So maybe there's an opportunity for me to be able
to have an impact in this kid's life,
to see like, alright, maybe I can be that beacon.
Maybe I can be that example.
I look forward to meeting the kid.
All it takes is you see the look in the kid's eye,
like that spark, that energy,
to where you know you've made a connection.
I said if we're fortunate enough to get to the finals
and we can play Cleveland, we're gonna go for it.
They're gonna stay with Cleveland, and LeBron. He's loyal!
I respect that, being from the Midwest, he's loyal.
- How is it like, being around, like, all these....
Y'all got like a team full of superstars.
- Well, we got KD. That's crazy.
- Oh, yeah, that's crazy.
- Do you know this guy?
- How you doin', man? - [Zion] Yeah, how you doin'?
- What up, everybody?
We got little man Zion, from Charleston.
Nah, I'm from Charleston, he's from Chicago.
- You're fittin' to get this W, right?
- That's right, you've seen the deal.
Alright, I appreciate it.
- Thank you very much.
- I'll see you guys later!
- When you got injured, I read something about like,
it was possible that you almost
could have had like an amputation.
- Yeah.
I didn't have any nerve damage, so once I got the test back,
they came back negative,
which was a positive sign for me, right?
- For me, I got the test back, and I actually had like,
cancer cells growing in my ankle.
So it was like, crazy, 'cause basketball was all I knew
at that time.
- Right, right, absolutely. - What am I gonna do now?
- What was going through your head when you got that test?
Like what were you thinking about?
- Basketball only, that's all I could talk about.
My mom was talking about like, "Your life matters."
- Right.
- I was thinking like, I ain't gonna be able
to hoop no more.
- We don't know if we're ever gonna get this moment again,
and seeing that kid smile when you walk in the room,
honestly, it just makes me wanna play that much harder.
I mean, I wanna have my best game tonight.
- This the future, right here. Say hi!
- Hi! - Say hi!
It was good choppin' it up with you, you know,
just, obviously, before the game.
- Yeah, I appreciate it.
- Yeah, this the battle right here, but you know the war
is every day.
Don't think it's sweet either,
just 'cause I come in here and tell you these things
that I know what you're going through.
Don't nobody know what you're going through, like,
just understand for now, you know, the war is never lost
until you give up, you know what I'm saying?
Alright, fam.
- Thank you.
- We outta here.
- Thank you, nice to meet you. Give me a hug.
- Until next time.
- I just wanna say thank you, because as a parent,
getting a diagnosis that your son has osteosarcoma,
bone cancer, is almost a death sentence.
But we never stop believing.
I think initially when we both heard that news,
we thought that was the end of life.
But what we're learning now, in our journey moving forward,
and what life means, is that that was the beginning of life.