“It’s crazy. Like, I never thought that people like DWade and Gabrielle Union would be like on my side,” DeAndre said on the CBS show, where he appeared with his mother, Sandy Arnold.

Ms. Union and Mr. Wade were not immediately available for comment on Saturday.

Just before winter break, DeAndre was called into the principal’s office and placed in an in-school suspension. DeAndre’s father, David Arnold, said on Saturday that DeAndre was back in school and referred inquiries to his wife, who did not immediately respond for comment.

DeAndre has said in interviews with news outlets that he has been wearing his dreadlocks since seventh grade and had no plans to cut his hair. He said his hairstyle had nothing to do with his potential.

“Me and my hair kind of grew up together in a way,’’ he said. “It’s like we’re best friends.”

Officials in the majority-white Barbers Hill Independent School District, which has nearly 5,400 students, said they were adhering to the handbook regulations on students’ grooming, which focus not on hairstyle but on length. The district is in Mont Belvieu, about 30 miles east of Houston.

The school district’s student handbook says that “male students’ hair must not extend below the top of a T-shirt collar or be gathered or worn in a style that would allow the hair to extend below the top of a T-shirt collar, below the eyebrows, or below the earlobes when let down.”