By Nick Pantages
@nick_pantages22
The Spears family is no stranger to elite athletes. Marcus Spears and his wife, Aiysha Smith, were both standout athletes at LSU, with Marcus excelling on the gridiron and Smith on the hardwood. Both were eventually selected as first-round picks in the NFL and WNBA drafts, respectively.
Their eldest daughter, Cari Spears, was a consensus top-five recruit in the class of 2025 in girls volleyball. In her freshman year at Texas, she was one of just four freshmen to make an All-America team, finishing on the AVCA All-American Third Team. Youngest daughter Miko, who is currently following her older sister’s path in volleyball, got the family’s stamp of approval as the best pure athlete in the family in an interview with The Athletic, despite not yet even reaching high school.
However, the Spears crew’s middle child, Marcus Jr., is off and running in his chase to join the list of successful athletes from the family. He has skyrocketed up the basketball recruiting rankings over the past 18 months, all the way to the No. 1 spot in the ESPN SCNext Top 60 rankings for the class of 2027.
Although Spears Jr.’s mother was the only one to play basketball collegiately and professionally, spending time with the Washington Mystics, his father was also an elite high school basketball player, winning Louisiana Gatorade Player of the Year in basketball in 2001.
Spears Jr. is listed as a 6-foot-9, 195-pound forward, with a lanky frame that resembles many elite wing recruits of the past decade. He first developed notoriety in recruiting circles after his freshman year in high school, where he made his way onto various national outlets’ rankings for the class of 2027.
The part of his game that Spears Jr. takes the most pride in is his defense and rebounding. Spears Jr. uses his frame, athleticism and instincts well on the defensive side, harassing defenders with his quick hands and feet.
On the other side of the ball, Spears Jr.’s developing offensive game is primarily led by his skill as a slasher, where the lefty wing uses his dominant left hand well to get to the rim, using both powerful finishing skills through contact and finesse. He has also displayed improvements in his shooting, with an expanding mid-range arsenal where he has shown the ability to consistently hit tough shots, and a more consistent 3-ball.
Spears Jr. plays for Dynamic Prep in his home state of Texas, under head coach Jermaine O’Neal. Along with being an 18-year NBA veteran and six-time NBA All-Star, O’Neal founded Dynamic Prep in 2022, and the program has since blossomed into a national power in a handful of years.
After joining Dynamic midway through his freshman year of high school, Spears Jr.’s development has accelerated under O’Neal over the past two years. O’Neal has produced a number of Division I players over the past four seasons from Dynamic, including seven players playing in one of the Power Five conferences. Although Spears has not yet narrowed down to a list of schools, he has been contacted by a number of basketball powerhouses from coast-to-coast.
Dynamic has seen ample success with O’Neal at the helm, including reaching the Chipotle Nationals championship game last season, where they fell to Columbus.
Spears Jr. has also shined on the international stage with Team USA. He starred for the U16 team in Mexico for the U16 AmeriCup this past summer, averaging a team-best 14 points per contest in just under 17 minutes a game. He also grabbed 6.5 rebounds per game, while collecting 12 steals and 11 blocks in the six games he played. With this performance, he was named to the tournament’s All-Star Five team.
With all this success, Spears Jr. never lets it get to his head. Whether it comes from his parents or coaches, either O’Neal or potential college coaches involved in his recruitment, Spears Jr. is always looking for ways to improve and level up his game. As he began to get noticed, Spears Jr.’s jump shot was a lacking piece in his game, but he has since progressed his jumper to where it is now a threat either in the catch-and-shoot area or in a pull-up off the dribble.
This trait showed in an interview with League Ready, where Spears Jr. said one of his parents’ favorite pieces of advice is to always look for ways to improve.
“Stay hungry,” Spears Jr. said. “It’s easy to get complacent with what you have. So stay hungry and stay humble.”
At the Hoophall Classic, Spears Jr. and Dynamic will face off against Prolific Prep, a matchup between two teams ranked in Sports Illustrated’s top five rankings as of Dec. 30, and featuring Spears. Jr and Dynamic’s talented team taking on two top six recruits, Caleb Holt and Bruce Branch III of Prolific.
In that game vs Prolific, Spears showed exactly why he owns that No. 1 spot in his class. He did a little bit of everything on offense, and was everywhere defensively. He turned in 10 points, six rebounds and three assists, but posted three steals and five blocks on the defensive end, with his dad courtside in a 78-66 win for Dynamic.