Boys Basketball Player of the Year: Meadowcreek's Jamir Chaplin
Jamir Chaplin didn’t come into the 2018-19 high school basketball season looking to reinvent himself as a player.
Given that he was a first-team All-State selection from Meadowcreek’s Class AAAAAAA state championship team from last year, that was hardly necessary.
The 6-foot-4 senior wing didn’t even need to change his role that much this year, given that he was already something of a team leader.
But with three starters from last year’s title team lost to graduation and a handful of newcomers — albeit a pair high-profile ones — Chaplin did think an adjustment to what he did and how he would do it for the Mustangs for this season was in order.
“It was a lot of pressure trying to win the state title again,” the 2019 Gwinnett Daily Post Boys Player of the Year said. “We had some newcomers in (Dominick) Dunn and (Jalen) Benjamin. They came in hoping to get to that level and actually get past it.
“So it was not that much pressure on me, (but) pressure on the team. You could tell we were ready, but we just couldn’t finish it off.”
Chaplin and the Mustangs didn’t quite finish off a repeat of last year’s title, falling to nationally ranked and undefeated McEachern 62-54 in this year’s finals, but they definitely showed they were able to make the necessary adjustments to make another deep tournament run despite having a much different makeup.
After fitting in like a glove with Meadowcreek’s twin towers Amari Kelly and Cory Hightower during last year’s title run, Chaplin found himself as being among the Mustangs’ tallest players this year.
While he didn’t totally abandon his strengths of playing out on the wing and driving to the rim, he did have to move down to the low block on occasion this season, particularly on the defensive end of the court.
It’s a role he wasn’t totally unfamiliar with, and certainly wasn’t uncomfortable in fulfilling.
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