I remember the day like it was yesterday. It was a Sunday morning almost five years ago when I got the call. There had been a car accident, I was told, a bad one, and things looked bleak. Tobi Oyedeji — just minutes after leaving his senior prom the night before; just five days shy of his 18th birthday; just weeks before following in my footsteps and heading off to play basketball at Texas A&M — had been involved in a head-on collision, and his life was hanging by a thread.

A few hours later, my friend and protégé, No. 35, was gone.

I keep the memory of Tobi alive by tweeting at him before each and every game.

Tobi was my younger brother Brett’s age when he died — they were classmates — but my connection with him when we first met was instant. Sure, on some level, it was because we both were promising young basketball players from Houston, but it ran deeper than that. I was his role model, he often used to tell people, and he certainly wasn’t shy about letting me know how much he looked up to me.

When this happened back in May 2010, I was only a second-year NBA player — I wasn’t even starting yet — and I was nowhere close to figuring it all out. Truth is, if you want to be successful, the pro game demands your best on and off the court. That means not just keeping yourself in peak physical condition, but also taking the requisite time to study both your craft and your opponents, and staying focused. Back then, I was still adjusting to the travel and the demands — all while doing my best to avoid the temptations and distractions that come along with being a professional athlete.

For me, not only was Tobi’s untimely death devastating, but for the first time in my life, I was forced to examine my own faith, and, ultimately, reprioritize what is most important to me. Going through something like that, and subsequently trying to wrap my head around how something so terrible could happen to someone I loved, brought me closer to God than I ever thought possible.

Now, it’s that relationship — that faith — which keeps me grounded, focused and aware, even when certain things outside of my control don’t go my way.