The father-son basketball bond between Carlos and Jalen Bradberry has been there from the jump.

"With him it wasn't that I had to introduce anything special or, like some dads will try and force it on them," Carlos Bradberry remembered. "He was a sponge and wanted to do it I guess by habit of watching me. So it was a really easy transition for me because he loved it from a young age."

Carlos was a standout at LaSalle high school before college stops at Niagara and New Hampshire. 

He turned to coaching as Jalen grew up, leading his youth and AAU teams.

And of course there were lessons just between the father and son on the court, until Jalen finally took the torch from Carlos around the time he reached middle school.

"He was always skilled," Carlos said. "At that time I could still play a little bit and I remember we would have a few 1-on-1 games and I would always take it easy on him, but at that point when he would start to beat me with dribble moves and that, that was sort of the wakening that, yeah, he's starting to get there."

"He too old, he can't beat me anymore," Jalen confidently said. "We'd play 1-on-1 every one in a while. Not a lot, though. Mostly just shoot around and stuff. But yeah, he just always got after me no matter what we did. He would always just push me and learning with me."

Jalen's game has continued to take off, already with Division I college offers on the table from nearly a dozen schools, including UB and Niagara.

He was getting ready for a senior season at Park high school when his dad got the coaching opportunity he'd always wanted.

"To me it was a no-brainer when the chance came for me to be able to coach here at Niagara Falls," Carlos said. "The biggest decision, though, was do I leave Jalen at Park or do I bring him with me and it's always been a dream of mine to coach him in high school."

So Jalen returned to Niagara Falls and reunited with his dad as his head coach.

"It's a blessing playing for my dad even if he gets on me more than the other guys because he's my dad," Jalen said. "I grew up playing with him so it feels good to finish my senior year playing under my dad."

And dad does believe he knows his son best.

"I think we can say that we're going to treat everybody the same, but in the real world we're going to talk to our kid a little bit different," Carlos admitted. "We're going to get on them a little bit harder. And I usually know what buttons to push with him from coaching him for so long."

And no matter how heated things may get, Jalen wouldn't change it for anything.

"It's still a great opportunity to play for him even if it's a shortened season," Jalen said. "I'm just blessed that we had this opportunity because it's about to be college, prep school and it's not going to happen ever again."

Of course Jalen can always get his payback when he goes 1-on-1 with Carlos again.