Ex-military JTA, fueled by fatherhood, continues basketball journey originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SANTA CRUZ – Juan Toscano-Anderson, sitting on the sidelines at Kaiser Permanente Arena, looks down at the inside of his left forearm glowing with pride. The Oakland native and Warriors champion is not new to the court, having kicked his way to Golden State. What is new is his latest ink in honor of his son, who is beginning to recover.
“That’s at the top of my list, being a dad,” Toscano-Anderson told NBC Sports Bay Area. “It’s the best thing I could ever do. I am glad my son chose me to be his father. He is the best, he is my goat.
“I just tattooed his name, ‘Jadyce The Greatest with a Goat,’ because he’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
The 31-year-old is back at the home of the Santa Cruz Warriors as a member of the G League United for the G League Fall Invitational where an eclectic group of prospects and veterans will play Serbia’s BC Mega Mis on Wednesday and Friday. , the same club that the late former Warriors assistant coach Dejan Milojevic coached future three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokić and current Los Angeles Clippers center Ivica Zubac.
At the conclusion of the United’s final practice before their first game, Toscano-Anderson skipped to center court and slapped his teammates en route to a huddle led by San Diego Clippers coach Paul Hewitt where he had the team time out on “Domini!” together
Toscano-Anderson is easily the leader of the group with the deepest pedigree. While others are looking to prove themselves for the first time, Toscano-Anderson is playing for something bigger because the current free agent also believes he still has a lot to give on the court. Once the opportunity was presented to him, Toscano-Anderson jumped at the chance to return to Santa Cruz.
Relentless defense. Diving for loose balls, even if it means putting his body on the line and crashing into the scorer’s table. Using his athleticism as a high-flyer, however, it can help the team, and being an extra voice on the floor or the bench. All of these traits led to Toscano-Anderson’s unlikely path to becoming a champion.
And it will all stay with him as long as he plays basketball. He’s also quick to point out that he shot over 40 percent from 3-point range in his first full NBA season with the Warriors in 2020-21, but understands that shooting has always been a knock on his game. Toscano-Anderson says he’s been working nonstop the past few months on his outside shot, specifically training with coach Phil Beckner in Phoenix and hopes to show consistency there to earn a training camp invite to the team. His contagious energy is sure to see too.
The sentimental aspect of these two games is not missed by him either. These fans are home to Toscano-Anderson. He earned a spot on the Santa Cruz roster from an open tryout in 2018 and played 74 games for the Santa Cruz Warriors between the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons before making his NBA debut for his hometown team at age 26 on the 26th from February 8, 2020.
“When I left Santa Cruz and went up to Golden State, I always said, ‘Man, I miss playing in Santa Cruz,'” he recalls. “I never knew if I would have the opportunity to play here again. Now that I do, I just want to embrace it, enjoy it and be in the moment.”
It’s been more than four-and-a-half years since Toscano-Anderson played a game in Santa Cruz, and six months since his last game, which was with the Mexico City Capitanes of the G League. He signed with the Sacramento Kings nearly two months into the NBA season after playing 11 games for the Capitanes, and then played 11 more games for coach Mike Brown before being waived in early January.
That could be an obstacle too difficult for many to handle. But that’s not how the Castro Valley High School alum is built. A month and a half later, Toscano-Anderson was back in Mexico City where fans flocked to see him play and his popularity surpassed those with the highest power in the entire country.
Toscano-Anderson as a member of the Warriors in 2022 became the first Mexican-American champion in NBA history. Eighteen months later, his son attended his first game on December 3, 2023, where in front of 13,561 fans at Mexico City Arena, who respect Toscano-Anderson, he scored 29 points against the Austin Spurs. Those 29 points are more than he scored in any of his 202 NBA games, as well as his 93 career games in the G League and the 121 games he played at Marquette.
“You go into this business and you want to be a basketball player, but it comes with a lot more,” Toscano-Anderson said. “You become a role model, you become an ambassador, you become all these other things. It’s cool to be a role model for kids, but even cooler to be a role model for my own son.
“The biggest thing for me is when my kid grows up or he gets old, I want him to be proud when he says, ‘That’s my dad.’ That’s the way I look at it. I want to put on the best game I can when my son comes to see me play, because I want to set a standard for him. … 15 points is great, but I can average 25 if my dad average 15. Being an NBA champion is great, but I can be a three-time NBA champion because my father was an NBA champion. Or I can be an MVP or an All-Star and so on.
“That’s just my perspective on everything. I just want to set a baseline for him so he has things to attack and things he wants to accomplish as he gets older.”
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Parenthood for many creates a newfound motivation that some never knew they had within them. That’s not the word Toscano-Anderson gravitates towards though. Perspective is, in every way.
The perspective of a parent, a partner, a man who now has nearly a decade of professional basketball to his name, and a name that holds weight that no other NBA player has.
“From my position, being one-of-one, representing a country and being that for Mexico, I will not be forgotten,” Toscano-Anderson knows. “… I don’t know if there are any other Toscano-Andersons in the world, but I want that name to carry weight and for it to be a legacy going forward and something for my son to be proud of.”
When he steps back onto the Kaiser Permanente Arena court Wednesday night, just over three weeks from Jadyce’s first birthday on Sept. 28, Toscano-Anderson will remember Santa Cruz fans screaming his name years ago. He will remember why he wore number 95 for the Warriors as a tribute to his childhood home on Oakland’s 95th Avenue. The highs, the lows and everything else will be there with him, as they always have been.
Now all he’ll have to do is take a look at the baby goat imprinted on his left forearm for why the journey continues wherever his basketball life takes him next, replaced forever by his greatest gift of fatherhood.
