It was the coolest experience of Cameron Holmes’ life.
Flying into New York late on a Tuesday night in the summer of 2024, checking into the hotel and encountering the likes of Jared McCain, Rob Dillingham and Reed Sheppard – faces he had seen tearing up their NCAA competition just a few months earlier.
Then, there was the event itself. The reason he was in New York in the first place.
Holmes and his family found themselves seated around a table inside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, waiting for the magical moment to happen.
After some tense moments, it finally did.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, elevated on a stage, stepped up to the lectern. It was something he had already done 21 times that night, but it was the 22nd that was special to Holmes and his family because, when Silver opened his mouth to speak, the words that came out changed their lives forever.
“The Phoenix Suns select DaRon Holmes II from the University of Dayton.”
Hugs and celebration ensued. Cameron’s oldest brother, DaRon, had just been drafted to an NBA team after three strong years at Dayton, and Cameron had front-row tickets to see it happen.
“Seeing your brother on the big stage, shaking Adam Silver’s hand, that meant a lot to me,” Cameron said. “Knowing that he made it and he put the work in for it, I want to do the same exact thing.”
Cameron isn’t quite there yet, but he’s well on his way as a renowned prospect in his own right. A four-star recruit, Holmes finds himself in the No. 29 slot on 247Sports’ national recruiting list and has a scholarship to play basketball at Arizona, the current No. 1 team in the nation.
Holmes grew up around basketball, and after dominating the high school ranks while attending Millennium High School in Goodyear, he’ll be one step closer to making the league, a path he is forging with an NBA player in his corner.
“He’s special,” Millennium coach Rich Thornton said. “Freak athlete, incredible teammate and hard worker, skilled. He has the intangibles of all the great players that I’ve coached.”
With Holmes’s basketball-obsessed family, his ascension to an elite basketball talent isn’t exactly surprising.
His parents, Tomika Steele-Holmes and DaRon Holmes, both played basketball in high school; DaRon even received college offers before ultimately choosing to focus on academics. Still, the sport remained important to him and his wife, with the two of them wanting their kids to follow in their athletic footsteps.
“I joked when we met and talked,” Steele-Holmes said. “I was like, ‘Oh, I want to have five boys, and I want them all to be athletes and play basketball.’”
Despite that desire, neither Tomika nor DaRon forced a basketball into Cameron’s hands – he handled that on his own.
Cameron spent the early years of his life watching DaRon II, who’s five years his senior, shoot around at the YMCA where Steele-Holmes worked. As soon as he was old enough and big enough to hold a basketball, he joined in on the fun.
Due to their age gap, Cameron and DaRon II never played with each other in a formal setting, but that didn’t stop them from going at it against each other growing up.
Whether it was at the YMCA or at home, Cameron, DaRon II and their middle brother, Quintyn, were often found playing basketball. Cameron and Quintyn could never quite beat DaRon, who was always bigger and more advanced as a player, even when they were kids.
“I (would) hear all this ruckus going on in the garage,” Steele-Holmes said. “They would have one of those toy basketball goals out there, and they’re trying to all dunk on it, and next thing I know, they’re out there fighting over it.”
As Cameron continued to grow, the chance for him to get in work against a stronger, older and better player pushed him physically and mentally, helping to prepare him for what lies ahead.
“In the modern-day league right now, you have to play against bigs no matter how tall you are,” Cameron said. “He kind of got me prepared for that. He’s very smart, IQ-wise, and I feel like my IQ just skyrocketed from there when I started playing against him and my other brother.”
For Cameron, battling against older players wasn’t something that was exclusive to one-on-ones against his brothers. It was the norm.
From the start, Cameron played against older players; a major factor in his development, with another being his pure love of the game.
Cameron simply couldn’t get enough basketball. From rec leagues at the YMCA to the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League to attending Team USA minicamps starting in 2023, basketball started to take over his life.
It was around the time that Cameron was invited to Team USA for the first time that he started to realize his talents.
“When I really started putting the work in,” Cameron said. “When I really started getting in the gym, countless hours, I showed myself truly that I can really take this basketball stuff to a whole ’nother level.”
Those hours in the gym immediately paid off when Cameron reached the high school level, helping lead Millennium to an appearance in the Arizona Interscholastic Association 5A state championship game.
The success carried over into his sophomore and junior seasons, but just like his freshman year, Cameron and his Millennium teammates couldn’t get over the hump. In 2023-24, the Tigers fell to Perry in the AIA Open Division championship game, and in 2024-25, they fell to Sunnyslope in the Open Division semifinals.
The elimination wasn’t the only loss that Cameron and his team faced in his junior year, as the end of the season saw the departure of his coach, Ty Amundsen, who joined Bobby Hurley’s staff at Arizona State.
With uncertainty atop the coaching staff and three straight near-misses in the state playoffs, Cameron could have easily left Millennium to join any number of private schools in the Valley – a move that DaRon II himself made years prior to gain more experience against the best competition available. Instead, he chose to keep riding the wave at the place he felt was home.
It’s part of the reason he chose to stay in-state instead of following in his brother’s footsteps at Dayton: The knowledge that everyone’s path is different.
“I’ve always just been a hometown kid,” Cameron said. “I wanted my family to come to my games next year. Choosing Arizona, staying with Millennium, it meant a lot to me. Loyalty over anything for me.”
Thornton ended up taking over at the helm of Millennium, coming to the West Valley after 12 years as an assistant coach at the athletic powerhouse that is Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas. For Thonton, the ability to coach Cameron was almost a fulfillment of a years-long goal.
“I coach for Vegas Elite, EYBL team,” Thornton said. “We recruited DaRon, and didn’t get him. And then we recruited Cam, and didn’t get him. In the process of all that, I got to know his dad, big DaRon, so we’ve had a relationship, they just never came to play for me, so I had to come here to coach one of his kids.”
So far, the partnership has worked out phenomenally.
Millennium went 15-2 during the regular season, losing to only IMG Academy and Sunnyslope, which occupies the No. 3 spot in MaxPreps National Boys Basketball Rankings.
The Tigers have risen to the No. 8 national spot, and could ascend further up the rankings after getting their long-awaited revenge in a rematch against Sunnyslope on Feb. 10, and finishing out the season with a 80-57 win against Brophy College Preparatory on Thursday.
The state championship brackets will be released on Saturday, and Millennium should be one of the top teams in the open division.
Millennium’s second matchup against Sunnyslope was arguably the team’s most important win of the year, and it was in that win that Cameron showed why he’s not only one of the best players in the 2026 class, but a natural-born leader as well.
The showcase of the two powerhouses went to overtime, but Millennium found itself with a slight lead, just needing to close out the game. Up to that point, Cameron had contributed in nearly every way possible on the basketball court: communicating with teammates, playing defense, finding the open man and hitting his shots. What he hadn’t done yet was come up in the clutch.
Then, an opportunity presented itself.
A Sunnyslope player tried to attack the basket with Cameron in the paint. The 6-foot-6 senior wasn’t about to let that happen, rising to the occasion with a win-sealing block, firing up himself, his teammates and the roaring gym.
After a series of free throws, the Tigers officially won, 77-71, and Cameron – who scored a game high 27 points to go along with his block – was once again the hero, refusing to let the sold-out home crowd or the stakes of the situation become too much for him to handle.
“Got in the locker room, just told my guys that this is us,” Cameron said. “This is what we do. We’re the number one team in the state, and I feel like tonight we showed it. We showed why.”
It was obvious by the team’s postgame celebrations that the win was a great feeling, but it’s also not where the team wants to peak. Cameron doesn’t plan on leaving Millennium without cementing the strongest legacy possible.
“(The) ultimate goal is to raise that trophy at the end of the year,” Cameron said. “It’s not over. It is not over at all. We can’t hang our heads on this win for too long.”
If Millennium makes it over the hump, Thornton believes it’ll be thanks, in large part, to Holmes’ leadership. It’s a quality he demonstrates by leading by example, from how he holds himself and his team accountable to how he works at his craft. It’s something he’s noticed the greats do, and something he’s worked hard to emulate.
“I look up to Kobe Bryant,” Cameron said. “What stood out with him is that he didn’t let anything else get in besides his work, and I want to be the same way. Don’t ever make any excuses for that. Come in every day, just be a dog and get to work.”
As a senior, Cameron’s leadership is visible with the label of captain, an honor he shares with the only other senior on the team, Dylan Coday. The two have known each other since third grade, and have grown to share a brother-like bond since starting high school together.
Coday has seen Cameron grow to not just embrace the role, but to go above and beyond in fulfilling it.
“I mean, he’s like our leader leader,” Coday said. “He’s really (the) top person on the team. He’s got the vocal, he’s yelling at us if we’re not giving enough effort, and he’s complimenting us when we do something well. He’s just a perfect leader.”
As Cameron’s Millennium teammates look up to him, he looks up to his oldest brother in the NBA, and as he prepares for his future – while still focusing on finishing out his senior year with Millennium – his relationship with DaRon II is potentially better than ever.
DaRon II is finding his own footing in the league after getting traded from the Suns to the Denver Nuggets on draft night and missing what would’ve been his rookie season with a torn right Achilles tendon. Nevertheless, he finds time to be a big brother.
DaRon II set Cameron up with his film guy, and whenever the two of them find themselves in the same city, they hit the gym together. DaRon II also finds the time to simply check in, something that goes both ways.
“He always checks up,” DaRon II said. “He asks questions if he needs anything. As a big brother, it’s always crazy to see him grow up. I remember him when he was just a baby, so seeing him now, it’s like wow.”
“Wow” is a sound that evaluators and scouts have surely made often while watching Cameron. He had his pick of great basketball schools to take his talents to at the next level, from Kansas to North Carolina, to Arizona, the school he committed to back in November.
UA is back to powerhouse status under the guidance of coach Tommy Lloyd, reaching the Sweet 16 in three of his first four seasons at the helm. Joining Lloyd in Tucson gives Holmes a great opportunity to accomplish what every collegiate basketball player wants: to win and to get drafted.
“He runs a great program down there,” Holmes said. “He’s very defensive-minded, and I love playing defense. I feel I want to be a two-way player, just make havoc on both sides of the court, and I feel like coach Tommy does a great job at that, putting his players in the right position to succeed.”
Holmes’ advanced skill set and potential make him an attractive fit for the Wildcats, but it’s his hustle and work ethic that can make him stand out among the crowd. So long as he can continue to approach the game with the same mindset, he could soon enough hear Adam Silver announce his name in Brooklyn.
As Thornton put it: “Sky’s the limit for him.”
Be the first to comment