Prospect Spotlight: Justus Salaam (2020)
A top prospect in Michigan’s 2020 class, Justus Salaam is coming off a big summer with The Family 15U, and ready to take what he learned into a healthy sophomore season with North Farmington.
Though he missed a lot of last year due to illness, he’ll bring leadership and experience to the Raiders this season — among other things.
“My strengths are being a floor general, getting my teammates involved, and bringing energy to the game and playing defense,” said Salaam.
“I think I have to work on my 3-point shooting a little bit more. I need to be more consistent. And my passing needs to be a little bit crisper and I need to tighten up my ball-handling.”
With The Family 15U, Salaam played against some of the nation’s best 2020 prospects on the EYBL circuit. And he and his guys wound up winning the Nike Peach Jam.
It was an experience that Salaam will not soon forget.
“It’s great competition, and our team won Peach Jam this summer and that was a great accomplishment. It was a great experience getting to play in front of all those college coaches,” he said.
“It was a little overwhelming at times seeing all those faces you see on TV at our games. But it was a great experience.”
He added: “I played decent, I expect a lot out of myself, so I’m not going to sugarcoat anything. I think I could have played better. One thing I took away from it, was that you have to be prepared every game, because it’s the best competition in the nation.”
With all the great exposure this summer came some initial recruitment from a couple of Midwest D1 programs.
“I’ve just had two colleges ask about me so far, U of D and Northern Illinois. I went to their camps and they showed interest in me there,” said Salaam, who’s hoping a strong sophomore season can boost his recruitment.
He’ll have a chance to excel this season — now that he’s 100 percent healthy — as the leader of North Farmington.
“Last year, as a freshman on varsity, it was a big transition from middle school to high school, but I eventually got used to it and played very well. I ended up getting sick though, and I lost 20 pounds, and the rest of the season was a recovery process and getting back to my normal self,” said Salaam.
“Coming into this season, I’ll need to bring a bigger leadership role to this team. I‘m still the starting point guard, but I’ll need need to bring more vocal leadership.”