SAN FRANCISCO — Before he was drawing a foul on James Harden and calling him “food,” Eric Paschall was a quiet, skinny kid from Westchester who couldn’t get into church-league games because the black tops of Harlem got too hot in the summertime.
“He was used to playing in air-conditioned gyms up in Westchester county and I remember the coach telling me ‘Juan, I’d like to put him in the game, but he’s crying because he said it’s too hot,'” Paschall’s father Juan Paschall said. “He wasn’t always very aggressive. It’s from going to the city, from Westchester County, and playing with kids who were better than him, who were tougher than him, that brought out the toughness.