Green Tech's Mayben Thrives With Guidance From Legendary Father
By Zach Smart
Bronx, NY--Green Tech's Haisi Mayben was feeling it.
The high octane Class of 2025 guard, who stuck three deep first half 3-pointers during Thursday night's 66-65 loss at Cardinal Hayes HS in the Bronx, pulled up from near NBA range for an inevitable heat check.
While Mayben's shot lipped out of the back rim, a familiar voice boomed its way onto the court.
"Get back! Get back on D!" Screamed Mayben's father, Emmanuel "Tiki" Mayben, who sat near court side.
Those cognizant of the history of New York State basketball recall Tiki Mayben as one of the best all-time players to emerge from the Albany area, blessed with rarefied and showman-like natural ability as a surgical passer and high wattage scorer. He initially committed to Syracuse-- as a 15-year-old.
He scrimmaged regularly with the Carmelo Anthony-led 2002-2003 Syracuse Orangemen, entrenched in heated battles with a team that wound up winning the national championship over Kansas that April.
Mayben averaged 22 points and 10 assists as a senior at Troy High School.
With his devilish handle and blur-like shiftiness, Mayben was as talented as he was a lightning rod for controversy..
At one point, Mayben was ranked No.1 nationally in the 2005 class.
He was also suspended from his high school team on multiple occasions. One suspension was the result of a parking lot brawl Mayben took part in. The melee hit an ugly crescendo after Mayben was accosted by a rowdy and sagacious fan base which had simply taken the insults too far. This was before the days of social media, IPADs, camera phones.
Hearsay was reality. Reputation followed everyone, everywhere.
Mayben eventually signed with UMass before taking a vagabond, campus to campus journey ride which witnessed him pioneer Binghamton to a berth in the NCAA national tournament.
On the elevated national stage, the Troy Boy scored 13 points, dished out seven assists, and grabbed five boards during an 84-62 loss to Duke back in March of 2009.
The glory paralleling the Mayben's instrumental role in leading the Bearcats to its first ever America East championship and NCAA tournament appearance would soon fade.
The kid who once played varsity basketball as an eighth grader, and appeared so ahead of his time with innate gifts on the court, would encounter trouble after steering clear of it throughout his well-traveled collegiate career.
Tiki Mayben would eventually become a key figure of a BInghamton program ensnared in a handful of disciplinary issues involving multiple players, which put the culture of the program under a national microscope during the time. In July of 2009, Mayben was arrested on felony drug possession. He was eventually sentenced to five years of probation.
Today, Mayben owns up to his mistakes without a trace of trepidation, elaboration, or backpedaling explanation. Having smarted from wounds of the long-ago past, the retired point guard's primary priority in life is simple. He wants to be the best father, coach, and mentor possible.
"He's been pushing me my entire life," said Haisi Mayben, who scored 15 points and handed on six assists on Thursday night.
"It definitely developed my game a lot. Being with him in the gym late at night, him pushing me to be the best I could be and never letting me settle. Teaching me lessons. He's emphasized my shooting, my scoring off the dribble. Just making sure I play the whole game and sustain my composure."
Haisi possesses both similarities and differences to his father's game. While he may be a better long distance shooter, he's not yet the play-creator which catapulted his father to the national spotlight.
The flash, the swagger, and the upstate grit within Haisi Mayben's game, however, seems to mirror that of his old man. It was evident Thursday night. The 6-foot-2 junior scissored his way into traffic and fed the perimeter.
The creative transition passes, the swift no-look passes, the crafty glides through traffic and bankers, they are all indicative of the fallen apple's close proximity to the tree.
Mayben scored 17 points, including a trio of 3-pointers-- one of which came during a game-breaking 19-3 run, to propel Green Tech to a 72-36 trouncing of Christian Brothers Academy in last year's Class AA title. It was the second consecutive Sectional championship for Mayben and Green Tech.
Mayben was named Tournament MVP.
With the washout victory, which avenged a 47-43 regular season loss to CBA during the regular season, Green Tech prolonged an improbable ten game winning streak. A streak which occurred after they had fallen below sea level, mustering a meager 6-7 record by late January of 2023.
Mayben recalls feeling exasperated during that woeful stretch of the season, when all around selfishness and subpar play hampered his team. He fought through it, however, through the main tool his father ingrained in him several years earlier: toughness between the ears.
Haisi would explain that the true turning point, the moment he really got serious about the game (partly at his father's urging), was during the spring of 2020. Heck, it wasn't like much else was going on at the time anyhow.
"It was during Covid, around late May, and every day my Dad would wake me up and we would go to the park around the corner from my house," Mayben said.
"We would get shots up, and just work on what I needed to work on. It lasted all of Covid, really."
Those brisk mornings, the laborious hours of absorbing hard coaching and loud earfuls would eventually pay instant dividends.
Mayben averaged 14 points as a freshman at Green Tech. His shiftiness, crafty finishing, shooting, and passing arsenal soon seized the attention of scouting services and local talent evaluators. A familiar name upstate, Mayben was widely regarded as one of the state's prominent young guards.
As a sophomore, he averaged 19 points. This season, Mayben has refined every component of his game and is averaging 16.6 points, eight assists, and five boards.
Though its a vastly different era and the depth of distractions are way greater than that of his father's heyday, the young Mayben has taken life lessons from his father's roller coaster journey of a career.
"He told me to just make sure I'm smart, that I'm making good decisions, and I'm staying level headed," the younger Mayben said.
"Everything else will take care of itself."
Tiki Mayben's story ultimately did not culminate on a sad note.
Eight years after appearing in SLAM Magazine as a teenager, Mayben revitalized his career with the Albany Patroons as well as the Albany Legends of the IBL professional league. The scoring spurt-ability which transformed Mayben into one of the best players in Section II history was once again evident-- the slickness and flashy handle and around the back passes still alive and well.
Making the games more meaningul, of course, was that his son got to see Dad go to work..
"It was great to watch those games," Haisi said. "To see him being one of the best old heads around at the time, still being able to put together those moves and put up points like that, it was really cool to see. It gave me a lot of motivation. I was around five years old at the time. But I remember it well, to be honest."
Now, it's his turn. The legacy continues.