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Joliet native Jeremiah Fears was selected No. 7 in the 2025 NBA Draft by the New Orleans Pelicans on Wednesday. It’s the highest a local player has been picked since Young’s Jahlil Okafor was drafted by Philadelphia with the No. 3 pick in 2015.
Fears didn’t receive the early attention from national evaluators that some players enjoy. Despite his older brother Jeremy Fears Jr.’s rise to national prominence, Jeremiah went under the radar all the way while skipping his senior year of high school and heading to college at Oklahoma.
But the locals always knew.