When I come home, it’s all about family.

The first thing I do back in LA is either have lunch or dinner with my parents.

My dad loves some chicken wings, so I might take him out to get some wings. My mom loves some fancy restaurants, so I take her to a fancy place for seafood or a steak place. She probably loves to dress up and this and that, so we go out to eat.

Then, I make my way down the line to try and see as many different family members with the time that I have. That’s about it. I go see family.

Last time we were out in LA, I spent some time with my grandfather, saw my grandmother, my auntie, my cousins. It’s all about family.

At my grandparents’ house, you got the home-cooked meals.

They were born in Louisiana, so they like to cook up some gumbo for me. When I went there last time, they had gumbo, mac and cheese, fried chicken, and pecan pie. I devoured it.

A lot of people from LA, sometimes they don’t have that family thing. When you don’t have family, especially in LA, then you go to the streets. When you’re in the streets, you’ve got the gangs.

I did a good job staying away from the gangs. My mom and father did a good job of hiding things from me.

Growing up, we lived all around LA, from South Central, to East LA, to West LA - different areas, different schools. There were situations that made us move - we had to move because we got robbed, we had to move to my grandmother’s house because my mom needed to save money to get an apartment.

Because we lived all over the city, I don’t really say I claim myself being from one certain area. I’ve been everywhere.

As a kid, I would say I was very active - couldn’t sit still. I could be in the mall, or anywhere, and I would be running circles. That’s when my mom knew:

Ok, this kid’s got to play in some sports. He’s got so much energy!

My parents put me in all kinds of sports, from karate, to swimming, to baseball, to football, to basketball, to soccer, and track. Track and field, that was my first sport. Then, I fell in love with basketball, because all my friends were playing it. I kind of got pretty good at it, and I took it serious from there.

I first started playing basketball when I was maybe 12 or 13. I played out of my church league. We were the Burbank Celtics.

I didn’t really know the skill set back then, but I knew I was fast. I was the first guy down the floor. I would run and get lay-ups. Teams were like, 'Ok, this guy’s pretty fast. He’s tall, and he can just fly down the floor.'

Later on, I had to learn defensive slides, how to shoot, and work on other stuff. I got intrigued with that - learning the other skills - not just flying down the floor and getting lay-ups.

Jesse Owens Park is smack dab in the hood. I used to go up there and play, think I had swimming lessons up there, too. That’s where we used to hoop and play pick up. Whenever my friends had a gym, wherever it was, I made sure they came and picked me up just to hoop, all over LA.

I really didn’t know what I was working towards as a youngun. I just know I loved basketball. I loved it, I loved doing it. It just interested me. I think as kids, man, you really got to love what you do with the sport. That’s why you see some guys in the NBA that don’t last long.

I genuinely just loved playing basketball, playing with my friends, playing late night hoops until 2 in the morning. I didn’t think I had a shot at the NBA until people said, ‘You have a good chance of making it. You just have to do XYZ, wake up early, work out, and get these shots up.’

‘Ok,’ I said. ‘No problem.’ I just made it a goal of mine.

I went to four or five different high schools. Pacific Hills was my first, Narbonne was my second, then a private school in Watts, Verbum Dei. But my friends were going to a school called Westchester, and I went to a lot of their games. They played LeBron in ‘03, you’d see them on TV.

Since all my friends went to Westchester, I really wanted to go there. I begged my mom could I go there, because my grades were getting better. So I ended up at Westchester for my 11th grade year, but I was ineligible because you had to be from that area to go to that school. We had to save up to move to that district, but I still couldn’t play until my senior year.

Once you have kids, you understand.

My mom had me and my sister at a young age, in her 20s, and she didn’t really get to experience her 20s and all that. She was basically taking care of us.

When I had kids, I called her. Everything you do now is pretty much for them, to make sure they’ll be successful. I told her that, and I realized that when I was a kid, I was just living and everything’s fine. You don’t realize what you’ve got to do to get groceries, make sure your kids have a meal on the table.

I was originally going to go to college at Louisville. Reggie Theus had been to a lot of my games at Westchester, and he was the one who recruited me. I went on a visit there, me and another guy, Andre Dunn, and I think Terrance Williams might have been on that visit, too. We all signed and committed. It was like, ‘Let’s just go here and kill it.’

Then, I was watching the McDonald’s All-American Game, watching guys play and go pro out of that. I was like, ‘Damn.’ I got selected to go to that game, and all the top guys - Gerald Green, C.J. Miles, Andrew Bynum - were in the locker room, and we were talking:

Are you guys going to go to the college you signed at, or are you trying to declare for the NBA?

Everybody was like, ‘We might have a good chance, and we’re going to declare.’

I remember going to my mom, and said, ‘Yo, we’re broke. We got nothing. I got a chance to get drafted.’ She wanted me to go to college, but I said I’d make enough money where I can pay for online classes, and get her out of debt to wherever she wanted. She said I was right.

I was fortunate to get drafted. I was 17 turning 18 years old. I think my mom had to sign that contract for me. The rest is history, man.

Detroit was kind of my college years, with the champions from ‘04 after I got drafted in ‘05. The vets were great. I was a young kid, and they just steered me in every right direction:

No, Amir, you got to do this, you got to do that.

I didn’t own a suit back then, but Antonio McDyess helped me with a bunch of suits, shoes, anything you could imagine. He gave me advice about paying bills. I also had my mom around. I wanted to be on my own at times, but I knew I had to deal with it. You got to learn. I was basically becoming a man in the NBA, learning about taking care of myself. I even had to figure out how to drive!

I remembered driving in LA a little bit, going to parks on go-karts. I kind of figured it out. I had to get an SUV in Detroit because it snowed a lot. I remember seeing Baron Davis in LA and he had a GMC Denali truck. I said, ‘Man, when I get some money I’m going to get a truck just like that.’ My favorite color was burgundy, so I got a burgundy Denali truck like Baron Davis had, with some 24s and burgundy rims. I thought, ‘Yeah, this is it right here.’

Detroit prepared me, but Toronto, I feel, was like my heyday years - when I went out on my own, and made a great career for myself. After six years there, my contract was up, and I was picked up by Boston. We had a great team, went as far as the Eastern Conference Finals. Then, I got picked up by Philly.

I know you hear the same thing:

Family over everything.

It’s just that for me. My family’s everything. That’s why I continue to work so hard.

My family loves Philly, first of all. They love it downtown. My lady loves that she can walk on South Street, take my kids to the park. That’s the biggest thing about it - my family has joined in, having a good time. And because I’m on the road, going back and forth, I got to make sure my family is good. They love it.

Family vibes on a team is big time, too, so I always try to talk. We have to see each other kind of more than our families. I’m always saying something. I always be positive. I try not to have any type of bad vibes, because everybody’s not in a good mood every day. Even though people might not want to hear it, I just try to say something, and say something loud.

What’s keeping me in it right now is we have a great team, and we have an opportunity to go far. We have great players. I feel like I have to be more vocal and keep the team locked in at times. We can’t get too high, we can’t get too low. We have one goal in there - we got to go further than what we did last year.

It’s a roller coaster, the season, but I think we’re starting to get that. I feel like with everybody being glued into that main goal we have, we’ll be able to get one of those banners up here in the rafters, man. That’s all my mindset is set on, is winning. No matter if I’m playing, or if I’m on the bench, I’m cheering my teammates on. Everybody wins, everybody eats. That’s the mindset, that’s the goal.

Family - at home, with my team. It’s what it’s all about.