How did Raptors’ rookie Allen Graves go from football to basketball?

Louisiana is a football state, hands down, with the New Orleans Saints being far more successful than the New Orleans Pelicans. Factor in college ball ( the state's most popular sport ), and you get a group of people who really like watching the pigskin get thrown around.

"I love football," said Graves in a presser. "Growing up in Louisiana you kind of have to play football. You gotta love it." When playing his "first love," Graves was a quarterback and wide receiver at the beginning of high school, but after an elbow injury and the development of a "shooting arm," he told his mother at the end of the football season that he was done with the gridiron, and would follow in the footsteps of his family members , going to play college basketball.

His mother, looking at her six-foot son, told him in no uncertain terms that "I don't think you're athletic enough… you're not tall enough. If you want to play a college sport, then I think it's going to be football, so you need to stick with it."