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Palo Verde junior point guard Kameron Pippen learned to appreciate the art of passing to create those highlight moments.

Pippen undertaking the facilitator role for Palo Verde basketball has ascended the guard to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥'s leader in assists with 126. Pippen is averaging 9.7 points, 6.6 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game for the Titans (15-4) this season. 

"Everyone always says you have to score, but for me, I like the older generation of pass-first point guards, so I try to get everyone in the game involved," Pippen said after Palo Verde's four-point loss to Sabino at the Martin Luther King Classic at McKale Center last week. "The ball is always going to find you, but you have to find other people. The Gods of basketball are always going to help the person who's trying to help somebody."

Palo Verde head coach Anthony Smith said Pippen is a "great leader and makes sharing the ball cool."

"A lot of people want to post their highlights, but none of them post their passes," Smith said. "I think it's awesome. He can really score and a lot of people don't really see that, because he dishes the ball so much to our team.

"They don't see that he can score when he really wants to. He does what we ask of him to do, which is huge. You don't see that a lot with kids, sharing the ball. He's made sharing the ball cool. He leads the state with the number that he has, but a lot of his passes are passed one more time and they steal the assist from him. The number would be so much higher than it is. He makes our team go, for sure."

Just before Pippen attended Palo Verde, he spent a majority of his youth years growing up in Detroit with his mother and three older sisters. His sister, Kayla Pippen, played basketball while the younger Pippen "went to all of her games and fell in love with basketball."

"I grew up with a lot of older people and started liking basketball," Pippen said.

Once he started playing, "I wasn't good," he said. 

"My coach used to put me on the box and I would get the ball, turn around and see who was open," Pippen said. "I always passed it and it was something I developed and then I got better at my handles, working on that when I was younger. I got better at passing and I take pride in that as a skill." 

Yes, they were often asked, "Are you related to Scottie Pippen?"

"It's hard," Kameron Pippen said. "I don't know. My grandad and everybody else tell … I don't know. I've never met him. My family has met him a couple of times before. Maybe somewhere down the line."

When he plays on the AAU circuit in the summer, Pippen dons 33 as his jersey number to pay homage to the former Chicago Bulls legend and Robin to Michael Jordan's Batman. Pippen wears No. 3 at Palo Verde to honor his three sisters. 

"Any time I need something, they're always here to support me," Pippen said of his sisters. "I love them and my mom. She's a single mom and did a lot raising three girls and a boy — and I was bad, man. I don't know how she did it. I'm grateful for her and she created a great family. I'm they all support me and I love them. They've helped me incredibly and I'm thankful." 

Even though Pippen shares the same name as Scottie Pippen, who helped evolve the point forward position, the Palo Verde star has been compared by his coaches and teammates to longtime NBA role player Pat Beverley and Philip Champion, who's known as "Hot Sauce" on the defunct Streetball AND1 Mixtape Tour. Smith dubbed Pippen "an athletic T.J. McConnell."

"He just has to run the team, make good passes, play good defense and give energy," Smith said. "I like that comparison for him."

Pippen has even heard a comparison to former Palo Verde star Bryce Cotton, a longtime National Basketball League player for the Perth Wildcats in Australia. Cotton is one of the best players in NBL history with three NBL championships and four NBL MVP honors. Cotton, who went to Providence after his Palo Verde career, is averaging 27.5 points, 4.5 assists and 3.2 rebounds per game this season for Perth.  

"Some people have tried comparing me to Bryce, but I'm like, 'Nah, Bryce is something else,'" Pippen said. "But it's good to have somebody like him who went to your school."

When Cotton returned to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ this past summer following an MVP season, he worked out and trained at his old stomping grounds. Smith introduced Pippen and a few other Palo Verde basketball players to Cotton for a workout. Cotton has "helped a lot of our players actually," Smith said. 

By the end of the session, "I was tired," Pippen said.

"I was dead, but he was just working and working and working the entire time. It was a mentality for him," he added. 

Not only does Pippen quarterback Palo Verde's basketball team, he's an actual quarterback in the fall for the Titans' football program. In six games this past season, Pippen completed 14 of 21 passes for 292 yards, four touchdowns and three interceptions, while leading the Titans in rushing with 385 yards and eight touchdowns.

Pippen said he "saw one of the coaches at school and said, 'I bet you I can throw better than your quarterback.' He said, 'Oh, really? Come out then.' I went out there and started throwing the football and he was like, 'You weren't lying.'"

"That's how I started playing quarterback," Pippen said. 

Smith, who ironically looks more like Patrick Mahomes than Dylan Raiola, said playing quarterback "definitely helps him on the basketball court."

The biggest difference between the two sports is "reading in football is probably harder, but you have to adjust faster in basketball," Pippen said. 

Now that Pippen is striving to receive an athletic scholarship to play either basketball or football, "my whole life is revolved around sports," he said.

"I've got friends and we'll go to an arcade sometimes, but usually I'm just working out," Pippen said. "I'm in the gym 24/7 and I'm a gym addict. I'm always trying to get better." 

When Pippen goes to college in 2026, he "wants to study business in college if basketball and football don't work out." 

"No matter what I do, I'm trying to leave a mark before I leave this world," Pippen said. "Some people just live, but I'm trying to make history with anything I do."

Pippen's goal before he leaves Palo Verde is to reach 1,000 career assists.

"You don't really hear about too many people getting 1,000 assists, so I'm trying to get that," Pippen said. "I don't know if I'm going to get it, but I hope I do."

As a leader and player at Palo Verde, Pippen "is right on time with where we need him to be," Smith said.

The best is yet to come. 

"Next year, we're going to ask Kam to score a little bit more," Smith said. "I think people will then see his full game." 

Fast Five with Kameron

Who is your biggest basketball inspiration?

"A lot of people ask me this, but I don't really watch basketball like that. But I'll say (Minnesota Timberwolves guard) Rob Dillingham. The grind from high school to college and now the NBA as a sixth man and working hard, that's what I'm trying to be. Even though things don't go your way, it's about fighting through it."

If you could choose any two players to compete in a 3-on-3 basketball tournament with, who are they?

"I'll say (Palo Verde guard) Daniel Ortiz and (forward) Adrian Powers. Those are my guys, man."

What are your favorite basketball shoes to play in?

"I'll say Kobe's. I only have one pair of Kobe's. How good I am, to have one pair of Kobe's?"

What is your go-to postgame meal?

"Chipotle. Get you a bowl, man. Everyone gets burritos, but a bowl gets you big and you'll be good after a game."

What is your favorite basketball movie?

"'White Men Can't Jump,' 'Like Mike' or 'Coach Carter.'"