He has the game – and catchphrase – of an internet sensation (PHOTO: Overtime Elite)
Two numbers turn OTE star guard Taylen Kinney into social media star
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6 Lesezeit
It almost seemed like Taylen Kinney couldn’t help himself from saying it. His catchphrase. The two numbers that turned the talented Overtime Elite point guard into a certified social media sensation.
The 17-year-old was asked how much older his basketball-playing brothers were than him, and there he goes: “They’re about 6-7 years older than me.” Rocking his hands back and forth as followers of his have seen millions of times.
That’s because over the course of his first season at OTE, Kinney jumped from about 60 thousand followers on social media platforms to over 1 million. One mention of “6-7” after the next. Even young children wanting to give their best impression of his “6-7”.
Looking back on the sudden surge in popularity, Kinney admits: “I got lost in it throughout the season because it was so much. For me as a kid, I just wanted to play basketball. I just happened to say two numbers and blew up. It’s crazy.”
He continued: “I felt like there was a lot of pressure on me. All of the kids hyping me up and stuff. I wasn’t expecting all this stuff to happen. I was just a kid.”
It wasn’t like Kinney didn’t have the game to back up the brighter spotlight.
The lightning quick, strong ball-handling playmaker was selected to participate last summer at the Adidas Euro Camp in Treviso, Italy, where former NBA veteran star Jason Terry was his coach and James Harden was also on hand.
“I learned a lot playing against pros and older guys,” he said. “It was great having coaches with a lot of experience and they could talk about their time in the league [the NBA].”
Just more than a week later, Kinney answered the call from USA Basketball for the first time, participating in the training camp for the FIBA U17 Basketball World Cup 2024. And he got to go up against some of the best young stars in the country such as AJ Dybantsa, the Boozer twin brothers Cameron and Cayden, as well Koa Peat, Tyran Stokes and others.
“It was fun going against those guys,” Kinney said. And when asked what he learned, he added: “In order to be great you gotta be vocal, gotta be perfect in all aspects of the game, defense, offense, teammates, leader.”
Kinney ended up not making the final team that went to Istanbul last summer and stormed to the title. But he stored it in his memory bank.
“It motivated me a lot. But it showed me to just keep working and working and make the next team.”
Kinney then in September was chosen as the number one pick in the first-year player draft at OTE for the 2024-25 season. And in the end, “TK” – as he is more commonly known – was a finalist for OTE’s Most Valuable Player of the season.
OTE is a big jump up for Kinney, who helped the Newport Wildcats to back-to-back ninth regional title in 2023 and 2024. He mentioned the level of competition as the main reason for leaving the Kentucky high school for OTE.
“I wanted to get to the NBA and I just thought it would help me a lot playing against those top guys every day,” he said.
Kinney also valued greatly how much access he had to the OTE gyms in Atlanta and the coaching staff and trainers in the program.
Another precious opportunity OTE provides is to travel to Abu Dhabi for the Adidas NextGen EuroLeague Finals – the second time the organization is competing in the competition.
When asked what he expects from the event, Kinney answered: “Good players, very tough competition. Playing against players I don’t usually get to play against – guys who are not in the mix in the States.”
And while Kinney has not made his way to Abu Dhabi yet, he shouldn’t be shocked if there are kids there who already know his signature saying and you hear the odd youngster call out to him: “6-7”.