With the Celtics finished for the season, Ron Harper Jr. is now watching with something more personal at stake: he wants the Spurs to win the championship for his brother Dylan. In a family conversation threaded with pride and pressure—from their father Ron Sr
After the Celtics were finally eliminated from the playoffs, Ron Harper Jr. didn’t just switch from game mode to waiting. He switched to hope.
Over the phone Friday, his mother, Maria Harper, described the moment she’s been picturing: after the Spurs win the championship, the family will share that brotherly burst of joy, and then Ronald is going to tell Dylan to his face, “I’ll see you next year.”
The significance lands harder because the Harpers have made basketball a language of family—one that their 5-time NBA champion father, Ron Sr., built long before the brothers were old enough to understand what expectations can do.
The father’s influence is everywhere in how Ron Harper Jr. talks. He’s driving from Boston to the family’s New Jersey home on Friday. a place that sits less than 30 miles northeast from Madison Square Garden. where the family used to frequent often as Knicks fans. Now the Celtics are gone. Now Ron Harper Jr. is rooting for the Spurs. Not because it’s easy. Because it’s Dylan.
Dylan Harper—20 years old, the No. 2 pick of the 2025 draft—has become the story his brother is chasing. In Game 1 of the NBA Finals, Dylan came off the bench and hit a 10-point outburst in the first quarter, making him the youngest player to record 10-plus points in an NBA Finals game.
“He’s always played years beyond his age. and he showed again how he can affect the game. ” Ron Harper Jr. said Friday. “For lack of a better word, I need the Spurs to win. I watch the games. and it’s really nerve-racking. but being able to watch him on the big stage. to be among the last few players still playing. it’s really special.”.
It’s a kind of watching that doesn’t look like typical fandom. Ron Harper Jr. isn’t just tracking box scores. He’s measuring something private—the distance between two brothers separated by six years. still connected by what he called brotherhood: support on their darkest days and a steady presence on their best ones.
Ron’s sincerity is rooted in how their family learned to live with comparisons. Their father’s own legacy—5-time NBA champion Ron Sr.—can be a heavy shadow, especially when people line up your future against your name.
Ron Harper Jr. said the story of Dylan’s rise has never been a surprise to him. He watched Dylan model what Ron set in motion: the work ethic, the ability to drown out noise, and the discipline to be his own man when expectations try to write the script for you.
That path carried Dylan through recruiting and into college. When Dylan was a high school prospect, he had the no-star high school recruit status that still ended up turning into major opportunities, and Ron framed how Dylan saw the same traits that got him there.
Ron took the scholarship route that shaped his entire timeline. Rutgers was one of the two Division 1 programs to offer him a scholarship after he fought through doubters. Rutgers had been one of the longest-suffering programs in college basketball. and Ron’s work helped it reach its first NCAA Tournament appearance in 40 years. It also returned for a second.
Ron wasn’t selected in the 2022 draft, but he kept working through opportunities in Boston, Toronto, Detroit, and back to Boston. In this season’s stretch, Joe Mazzulla trusted him to start Game 7 of the playoff series against the 76ers.
The Rutgers coach. Steve Pikiell. described Ron as something more than a scorer—someone who could carry the pro model as it moved toward position-less basketball. Pikiell said Ron was “as draftable a player as there was in college basketball his senior year. ” adding that he was over 1. 800 points and that he “got better every single year.” Pikiell said he always knew Ron was a pro. and emphasized that Ron could score while defending multiple positions.
Pikiell also pointed to the moment Brad Stevens and team leadership saw what he’d seen all along—saying Ron could play the point guard. 2. 3. and 4. and was strong enough to defend all of them. Pikiell called Ron’s evolution “like it’s always been,” saying, “He gets better. He learns. He’s coachable. He’s a big-moment guy.”.
In that same conversation, Pikiell said he expects the Celtics to lock Ron into a five-year deal after the current one ends.
Now Ron is watching a brother who took a similar route—just on a different timetable and with different stakes. Ron said he and Dylan have a great relationship and always have. He described them as inseparable around each other, working out and hanging out. As they’ve grown older, he said they get closer even though they are further away.
Ron added that he sees that closeness as the real “beautiful thing about brotherhood.”
As Ron’s career moved into the NBA, Dylan’s career climbed into the spotlight of high school recruiting. When Dylan became one of the highest-rated players in the nation, he chose to spend his one college season at Rutgers—“Just like his brother.”
For the first time this season, the brothers faced each other as pros. It happened back in March, when the Spurs beat the Celtics in San Antonio. Ron’s own performance mattered. too: Ron scored a career-high 22 points off the bench. but it wasn’t enough to beat his brother’s team. Dylan’s Spurs won, and Ron’s 22 points were bested by 13 points in their matchup by the younger Harper.
Those head-to-head moments are now part of the future Ron is trying to picture. Ron’s belief is that Dylan will fit the same kind of steady growth that Stevens and Mazzulla are built to recognize—someone who doesn’t necessarily explode in the first instant, but sticks, learns, and gets better.
Maria Harper offered a picture of Dylan that sounds like cooking—slow, intentional, and built to land right.
“He is my Crock-Pot,” she said. “Anyone who sees all the good ingredients Ronald has and takes the time to look at that pot, watches it simmer, they come out with the best-tasting dish they ever had. That’s what the Celtics have done.”
Maria then tied her story to Dylan’s style. She said the Celtics recognized Ronald Harper Jr.’s identity today and what he can be tomorrow. describing Boston’s investment in him and how he felt it. She said Boston is where he wanted to be. where he chose to be after getting waived by the Pistons. and that he is starting to blossom.
The difference with Dylan, Maria said, is that Dylan is “a little bit of a microwave, so to speak.”
As the Finals tighten, the Harpers’ family reality is no longer abstract. One brother is rooting for the Spurs’ championship run. The other is doing the work in a place where nerves come from the stakes being both basketball—and blood.
If Ron Sr.’s path taught them to handle noise, this moment tests the quieter part: having to watch your brother chase history, and hoping that when it’s time, the last words you hear from family aren’t about endings.
They’re about next year.
Ron Harper Jr. Dylan Harper Spurs Celtics NBA Finals brotherhood Maria Harper Ron Sr. Rutgers