Woodmere native recognized by NBA for jersey collection

Brad Parker has a National Basketball Association jersey collection so large he is running out of room to store them in his Manhattan apartment and his childhood home in North Woodmere.

Parker, 32, started collecting NBA jerseys roughly a quarter of as century ago through his father, Larry. Parker is an NBA super fan with a collection amassing 226 NBA Jerseys.

“It's a huge part of my life,” Parker said. “Once a year my aunt Cheryl would always let us pick out our favorite jersey. We'd have an allotted amount of time to run around the NBA store in Manhattan and find our favorite jersey and she'd always buy it for us. That was always a treat.”

Parker estimates his collection has cost him $18,000 and is worth every penny. The NBA noticed his massive collection and featured him on its website and social media pages for NBA jersey day on Dec. 14.

“It was almost like coming full circle because I have this collection that is a conversation piece,” he said. “All my friends and my family know about it. But nothing ever came of it besides a couple of viral videos. 10-year-old me would have never thought, 20 years later the NBA would write an article about me and be featured on their social media, their app, and their website. I would have called you a liar.”

Parker’s jersey collecting picked up in high school once he started earning some money. He would scour the Internet for the rarest NBA jerseys he could find. “I didn’t want a big-name player,” he said. “I wanted the obscure guy from the ’90s or the 2000s that would be tough to find. I like the jersey that is a conversation starter in public. Where somebody will stop me and say, where did you get that?”

Like many NBA fans Parker had dreams of playing in the league and although that dream relinquished fairly quick Parker, he found other ways to surround himself with basketball and be involved in the game and with the NBA. 

Parker worked at Hoop magazine for two years where he had the opportunity to attend Knicks and Nets games and multiple NBA events and games. “I fell in love with interviewing athletes and NBA players,” Parker said.

Just before the Covid pandemic hit, he sought another job in the field and in early February 2020, stumbled upon The Score, a sports media website.

“They gave me a unique opportunity to freelance and I had the chance to interview athletes with fun light touch questions on Instagram Live,” Parker said. In September 2020, they hired me full time.”

Parker has interviewed many NBA players, including LeBron James and Devin Booker, and former player Shaquille O’Neal. He also had an online interaction with former NBA star Dwyane Wade in 2018 that led to Parker playing pickup basketball with Wade in Manhattan.

“He put out a tweet saying ‘Where are all the New York City Hooper's’ and I tweeted at him to come play pickup basketball ball in the city and he showed up and I got to guard him,” Parker said.”

Still collecting NBA jerseys and a content creator for The Score where Parker runs their Instagram and TikTok page. He also covers Nets games for and creates videos for social posts and discusses the hottest NBA issues. This February he will be in Utah for the NBA All Star game.