T
ray Burton went down to Edison Career & Technology High School’s basketball court in 2015 after hearing murmurs about one player. When a student pointed Dyaisha Fair out to him, Burton realized he was standing right next to her. Burton overlooked Fair at first because of her talent because of her 100 lb. weight and slim frame.
But after two minutes, Burton realized Fair was better than anyone in that gym. She went after defenders from the boy’s team, constantly driving to the hoop. Once the basketball season came around, Fair immediately started for the Inventors.
Fair quickly rose to become Edison Tech’s all-time leading-scorer by her senior season. Even when then-Buffalo head coach Felisha Legette-Jack first met Fair at a camp, she immediately knew of her talents.
“She’s like that audible button in a video game,” Burton said. “If you want her to be a scoring guard, she’ll be a scoring guard. If you want her to be a passing guard, she’ll be a passing guard.”
At Buffalo, Fair cemented herself as the leading scorer in three of her seasons with the Bulls before announcing her decision to transfer to Syracuse last April. This mix of talent and confidence, which people instantly noticed, helped her become one of the Orange’s starting guards and a captain.
Before she got to Syracuse or Buffalo, though, Fair held these qualities back, especially as a high schooler at Rochester. In his third period gym class, Edison Tech head coach Jack Palmeri remembers Fair dominating everyone. Fair told Palmeri she would be the best player he has ever seen. Palmeri responded, “Yeah, whatever.”
“I came down, checked her out. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Palmeri said.
Fair averaged 60 points per game in middle school, Palmeri said. But she never learned how to play with teammates as she often scored the majority of the points herself.
“She had never learned how to play with kids and not to take on all their responsibilities,” Palmeri said.
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Fair learned how to play with her four other teammates by interacting with Palmeri off the court. Fair would visit Palmeri’s classroom and talk for hours. Fair had a lot in common with Palmeri, such as their initial introvertedness, he said. To many, Fair would keep to herself. But once Palmeri started to get to know her, he realized she could be more open.
“I get that sometimes if I don’t smile, I may seem a little unapproachable or intimidating,” Fair said. “But if you speak to me or we have a conversation, you’ll get one.”
As a senior, Fair and the Inventors were dominating rival Wilson Magnet in the opening round of the 2019 Section V Class AA tournament. Fair finished with 32 points, four less than the Wilson Magnet’s total. In the second half, Fair became much more of a distributor, consistently passing the ball to her teammates.
Fair made two quick cuts up the left side of the court before chucking a long pass to the bottom left corner, where her teammate received the one-handed pass to score on a layup in the 80-36 victory.
But Fair could also display that initial confidence she showed Palmeri. Fair recorded 40 and 50-point games on multiple occasions, eventually setting Edison’s career points record.
The coaches played a game called “Noodles” with Fair. They said noodles during a game, and Fair had to make opposing guards’ legs “look like noodles,” blowing past and disorienting them.
Once games became blowouts, Fair took part in a “game within the game,” Burton said. The assistant coach said Fair would drive around 25 times, then she would have to shoot from outside of the arc. Fair would pull up — and make the shot — from 30 feet and half-court as well.
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While Fair’s AAU coach, Terry Nowden told her not to take long 30-footers, he was astounded by the level of conviction she would play with. In a tournament in Atlanta, Nowden’s team trailed by a possession in overtime.
In a timeout, Fair guaranteed they were going to run a pick-and-roll and that she was going to pass to her teammate for the layup and a foul. The play happened exactly as Fair envisioned it would — sending the game to double overtime.
Burton, who grew up playing in the Brooklyn and Queens, competing against the likes of Stephon Marbury and Rafer Alston, said Fair reminded him of guards back home. Hsees upstate New York players as more aggressive with lateral movement while players from New York City would rather dodge and not get touched in the lane. Fair’s a mix of two, Burton said, and Legette-Jack acknowledged that importance.
“Dyaisha is hard to guard. Somebody that you can’t really stop what their move is,” Legette-Jack said. “Her move is her story. Her move is what she’s trying to display, about where she is coming from.”
Fair used these moves as part of the Inventors’ offense, which Burton said featured many motions and downscreens. But Fair grasped onto these concepts quicker than her teammates, forcing Burton to practice with her one-on-one with pick-up games and advanced dribbling drills.
Burton also had a drill called “21,” where two shooters took part in a shooting contest. A 3-pointer was worth two points and a rebound with a subsequent layup was worth three points. The first person to reach 21 won, and Fair beat Burton multiple times.
Despite her skills, colleges still didn’t notice Fair. Palmeri sent tapes to colleges, including Syracuse and Buffalo. Palmeri also got Fair signed up for a camp with Legette-Jack at Buffalo, where the then-Bulls head coach recognized her abilities.
Burton said Fair wanted to go to Buffalo after watching the Bulls point guard at the time, Cierra Dillard, who was in the midst of an all-conference season before she was drafted by the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx. When Fair watched her play, she instantly thought she was better than Dillard.
Over her time at Buffalo, Nowden said he would tell Fair to apply more pressure on the ball, and the guard did exactly that, eventually leading to Fair becoming the Bulls’ rebounding leader in the 2020-21 season.
Nowden still plans to text Fair while she plays at SU “here and there.” He still wants to help Fair reach that goal she set when she first saw Dillard play for Buffalo.
“I remember her telling me, ‘I’m gonna be having this WNBA watch party one day,’” Nowden said. “‘I’m gonna be better than that.’”
Published on November 6, 2022 at 9:51 pm
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