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RUSSELLVILLE -- With a fully clothed leap into his grandmother's pool, all of Taelon Peter's emotions splashed out.
The moments of doubts and dreams, belief and heartbreak, joys and pains led to jubilation. One by one, more family members joined Peter in the pool. Soaked hats and shoes populated the home, but all was well.
"It was an extremely emotional moment. We just wanted to celebrate and show that we didn't care about anything but the moment," Peter said. "It was just a moment where everybody got to express that nothing else mattered but the journey."
After never playing on a basketball circuit and holding just one Division I offer out of high school, Peter, a 6-4 guard who averaged 13.7 points and 4 rebounds in his lone season at Liberty, was selected by the Indiana Pacers with the 54th pick in the NBA Draft on Thursday. He was the only college player who was not invited to the NBA or G League combines to be selected and just 1 of 3 overall.
That journey makes for one of the most unlikely draft stories of the 2025 cycle, one that traces from far before a pair of selection-night phone calls -- one from his agent telling him to be ready and keep his phone on, the other being from the Pacers -- and the private watch party held at his grandmother's home.
Prior to his year at Liberty, he spent three years playing Division II basketball at Arkansas Tech after one year at Tennessee Tech.
"Let God write your story," Brad Palmer, his fourth-grade bus driver and eventual father-in-law, told him. "If the basketball is meant to happen, it'll happen. He really embraced that at a young age."
Peter and Palmer talked about basketball, with the possibility of playing in the NBA casually brought up. Many of their conversations turned to personal growth and life away from athletics, with Palmer likening Peter to something of an adopted son.
"There were times where he, like a lot of boys do, would get those big eyes," Palmer said. " 'Man, maybe I can be a pro someday.' ... He had little boy dreams, like everybody."
Peter grew and became more athletic, though he was mindful to ensure that his identity wasn't solely tied to sports. Palmer got him and his brother into Arkansas Tech games and Peter made inroads in his athletics career.
Before he focused on basketball, Peter was a two-time state champion in the high jump and garnered collegiate interest on the track.
He was overlooked on the court.
Many in-state Division II schools passed or offered partial scholarships. He impressed some, but few extended offers.
"We definitely knew he was an elite athlete," said Kyle Pennington, who coached Peter at Russellville High School. "He's got a great mindset. He's very coachable. ... He had a dream, he believed in his dream. He continued to work towards that. He trusted God at each step and he made that happen."
Tennessee Tech was the only Division I school to offer Peter a spot and he committed.
His lone year with the Golden Eagles, though, did not go as hoped.
Peter didn't always see eye-to-eye with the staff. He appeared in six games and averaged 1.7 points before tearing his labrum and missing the remainder of his freshman season. Classes were largely online due to covid-19.
"It was definitely rough," said Gracie Peter, Taelon's wife. "At that point, we weren't thinking about the NBA. ... It's just so crazy to see how the Lord directed that. It felt like the lowest time, and it was just obviously for a purpose. It's just insane. I know that was the hardest season for him, so it's amazing how it works together."
Taelon hit rock bottom. His NBA dream, at the time, was dead.
"I didn't know why I was having to go through the tough challenges," he said. "All these things, all these emotional highs and lows and just wondering in those moments: 'Why?'
"It's in these moments when I realized that, without those lows and those challenges that I faced, I wouldn't have been the man I am, to be able to experience the extreme blessing of getting drafted."
Taelon entered the transfer portal and returned home.
He said he moved back to Russellville without speaking with any Arkansas Tech coaches. He tried to join the Wonder Boys team and the coaching staff welcomed him aboard.
There were some struggles at first, but there was joy. Taelon was home, surrounded by loved ones -- including Gracie, who played volleyball at Arkansas Tech -- while representing his community.
"I think he really thought that was going to be the end of the story," Palmer said.
In his first season, Taelon averaged 10 points a game and played largely in a sixth-man role. But as the years progressed, the Wonder Boys rallied with Taelon as a leader.
Throughout his three-year stint back home, Taelon scored 1,321 points and turned himself into one of the top players in Division II men's basketball.
"I've had some guys as a D-I assistant that have played in the NBA and have been drafted," Arkansas Tech Coach Mark Downey told KATV on Friday. "Taelon's got as much ability as any of those guys."
After his junior year, Taelon was named the Great American Conference Player of the Year and made the All-Central Region Team.
"I think I just saw his mind in a different place," Gracie said. "I saw him mature as a player and as a person. ... It really paid off in the end."
Taelon's Division I career -- due in part to multi-time transfer rules being changed -- was revived, though his NBA dreams weren't on his mind at that time.
He received interests from several D-I programs, some with higher profiles and better financial offers than Liberty.
"Culture" is a loose term, thrown around in college basketball oftentimes with little definition. For Taelon, though, there was meaning behind the word.
He wanted a program that gave him the same feeling of community that he had while playing at home. Liberty filled that need and he committed on his visit.
"I didn't know places like this existed before," Taelon said. "Finding a place that felt just like home did at the highest level, it made it a no-brainer for me. ... It was honestly one of the best decisions I've ever made."
The fit was natural. Playing for the Flames -- regular Conference USA contenders -- gave Taelon the platform he needed both on and off the floor.
"I don't know that I've had many guys that can walk in a room and affect it like he can," Liberty Coach Ritchie McKay said in a social media feature in January. "He's so gifted. He's got this compassionate, secret place that he will extend to others on the down-low that is incredible.
"He's only shown a sliver of the kind of player he is. ... Make no mistake about it, he's been a gift to us."
In his lone season in Lynchburg, Va., he was named Conference USA Sixth Man of the Year and was 1 of 13 players to have a true shooting percentage greater than 70% -- just 1 of 3 that weren't post players.
Liberty won both the Conference USA regular-season and tournament titles to earn a spot in the NCAA Tournament, where it lost to Oregon in the first round.
"We thought it was the pinnacle," Palmer said. "We were like, 'Man, it can't get any better than this.' Clearly, we didn't know what was coming."
Taelon's NBA dream regained its pulse midway through the season.
Someone mentioned the NBA to him, just testing the waters.
McKay had emphasized that Taelon had the DNA -- the height, athleticism, shooting, character and work ethic -- required for the next level.
That awakened the long-slumbering dream and brightened the eyes of the one-time bus-riding fourth grader.
"All of my life, it's been blind work. I've been working toward this dream that I haven't seen," Taelon said. "I haven't seen anybody close to me achieve or reach it. I think whenever somebody started speaking (about the) NBA is when I saw the light at the end of the tunnel."
But there was no combine invitation and little outside hype.
Taelon wasn't featured on the majority of mock drafts and was one of the most unknown prospects entering the draft.
McKay and Taelon's agent had connections and helped arrange workouts. In total, he worked with seven NBA franchises.
His best performance was with the Pacers, who were in the midst of the NBA Finals at the time. Taelon's workout came between games, allowing for more people to watch, including Larry Bird -- who commented on how well he shot -- and members of the coaching staff. Many players on the active roster were in the building.
"It was a God moment. It felt like all of my hard work that I've been putting in and all of the long, hard years of just grinding and grinding all came to fruition that day," Taelon said. "It felt like everything that needed to happen, happened."
Taelon became the first Liberty player to be drafted since 1985, when Cliff Webber was taken by the Boston Celtics in the fourth round. He is the first draftee to have spent time at Arkansas Tech since the St. Louis Hawks selected Kenny Saylors in the 1963 second round.
He received the phone call while sitting on the couch, watching the draft with Gracie to his right. She faintly listened to the conversation, holding her emotions together until she heard the question: "Do you want to be a Pacer?"
"It's been such a journey," Gracie said. "I've seen the journey and the highs and the lows. It's not been a traditional journey, so it was just kind of a culmination of all of that."
The conversations, splash and reflections made his draft night the second-best moment of Taelon's life, behind only his wedding.
An unlikely path to the NBA, which saw his dream die and be resuscitated, is fitting for the story Taelon has written.
"I've seen myself lose hope," he said. "There's people good enough at every level. That's what I'm here in the league to prove. ... For everybody that can't afford to be on a big circuit team or can't afford to have all the nice things, it's possible, it's doable from wherever you are."