Excerpt...
A longtime assistant coach, Abdur-Rahim spent time on staffs at Georgia, Texas A&M, Charleston, Georgia Tech and Murray State. While on Tom Crean's staff at Georgia, the Atlanta native helped the Bulldogs sign top-five recruit Anthony Edwards, who went on to be the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NBA draft.
Before Abdur-Rahim left Georgia for Kennesaw State, he called Edwards to get his blessing.
"Signing a guy like Anthony, that's a relationship that had been four years building and in the making. There were people around it that I had real relationships with that trusted myself and the coaching staff at Georgia, that trusted me to be there," Abdur-Rahim said on the "Coaching Origins" podcast in 2022. "Before I accepted the job, I called a few people, I called Anthony and I just said, 'Hey man, I got this opportunity, but if you need me here, I'll stay. I'm perfectly OK with it.'
"I wouldn't have been able to recruit the players that I've recruited if it weren't for those, I call them, real relationships. Whether I got the kid or not. That person over there was going to be OK with me no matter what, and I was going to be OK with them."