It was four days after Christmas when Justise Winslow received the best present of his holiday. Standing in the kitchen of his Portland-area home and holding the hands of his 13-month-old son below him, Winslow could sense a moment was about to transpire. Winslow let go of Niko’s hands.

From across the kitchen, Kristina Escobar, Winslow’s partner and the mother of Niko, encouraged her son to take his first step.

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“And he took not one, not two, but a good four steps,” Escobar said.

As Winslow captured the moment on his phone, he swelled with pride.

“I was just proud,” Winslow said. “To see his growth, and the different things he is figuring out about life, and his body … I was just happy for him. They were baby steps, but they were these giant, little steps. It felt so monumental.”

Winslow could have easily been referring to his own emotional journey. He is 26 and on the Portland Trail Blazers, his fourth team in eight NBA seasons, and he is still growing, still taking giant, little steps. For him, they are steps toward happiness and fulfillment. And most important, steps away from the darkness.

Winslow doesn’t know exactly when or how he slipped into darkness, he just knows he was there.

“I made a home in a dark place,” Winslow said. “And I made it comfortable.”

A national champion at Duke and the No. 10 pick by the Miami Heat in 2015, Winslow has made millions playing basketball. Yet, he was often miserable. As he dealt with injuries, he lost his identity and questioned his self worth. And in his idle time while sidelined, tangled emotions ran wild in his head: the frustration surrounding his parents’ divorce, the pressures of living up to the expectations of being a lottery pick, and the guilt of how he coped with it all.

He was a wreck physically and mentally.

“I enjoyed the self pity,” he said. “I kind of made myself into this underdog who was going to stay down, stay in this hole.”

In his summers, he tried masking his depression by abusing alcohol, and using women. He would often drink a bottle of wine before embarking on a night of tequila and clubbing, where he would “try to find love in the wrong places.” When he was in season, he became what he called “an energy vampire” — moody and self-absorbed — as he coped with his injuries, first a shoulder injury in Miami, followed by back and hip injuries in Memphis. Through it all, he had become distant and closed to his family. At one point, as he was recovering from shoulder surgery in his second NBA season, his mental state had become so concerning that Winslow’s brother Josh remembers receiving a call from Miami coach Erik Spoelstra.

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“Spo was the first person who reached out to me,” Josh said. “He was like, ‘I FaceTimed Justise today and it looked like he hadn’t shaved for weeks, or left his room.’ And everybody on the team was like, ‘That’s not the guy we drafted.’ It got dark for him, for sure.”

It was a spiral that nearly engulfed Winslow. He brawled with his brother on a Bahamas beach. He cried to his mother on her birthday. He clashed with Spoelstra, and was eventually traded, even though the coach went out of his way to understand and embrace him.

That’s why the scene in his kitchen on Dec. 29 resonated so deeply with Winslow. He not only escaped his darkness, but those in his inner circle also say he came out of it a better, and more complete person.

Before he became a key cog on the Trail Blazers, and before he was an oft-injured player who bounced between Miami, Memphis and the Clippers, Winslow was a cautionary tale that so often unfolds in the NBA: a teenager highly drafted, given millions of dollars and heaps of attention, only to struggle with how to cope with it all.

Miami drafted him right after Charlotte took Frank Kaminsky and before Indiana selected Myles Turner because the Heat were enamored with his varied skill set as a 6-foot-6 forward. During his only season at Duke, Winslow averaged 12.6 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.1 assists while starting all 39 games, a do-it-all contributor on the 2015 NCAA title team that also featured Jahlil Okafor, Quinn Cook and Tyus Jones.

He was the highest pick by the Heat since they selected Michael Beasley No. 2 in 2008, and 12 years after they took Dwyane Wade fifth in 2003. Winslow said the city and organization showered him with love and attention, which was good for his ego, but bad for his perspective.

“Getting drafted that high, and being this lottery pick, there was a lot of … I don’t want to say me being a savior or anything compared to LeBron or Zion and what they went through … but it was kind of like, ‘This is the guy D Wade was going to pass the torch to in Miami,” Winslow said. “So that was the expectation, and I was cool with it. My family, we enjoyed that attention that came with it, because there was a lot of positivity that came with it — appearances, endorsements, events in Miami — and just kind of shadowing D Wade.”

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He made the NBA’s second-team All-Rookie team and in his second season he nearly doubled his scoring, averaging 10.9 points before he tore the labrum in his right shoulder. A surgery in January ended his season and began what would be years of torment. His body had trouble staying healthy, and in the process, his mind wandered.

“I was very selfish; I thought the world was centered around me, especially when basketball was taken away,” Winslow said. “I didn’t know how to fill myself up. That’s when a lot of the negativity and darkness started to creep in.”

He drank heavily. He passed through women. And confusion and frustration surrounding his parents’ divorce, which had long festered while he focused on his career, came to the surface.

“You come in the league at 19 and s— is good and s— is gravy,” Winslow said. “And then it goes south … and you gotta figure it out. It’s like asking a 19-year-old what they want to major in … they don’t know. I didn’t know myself at 19.”

His parents divorced when he was 3, and he lived with his mother, Robin Davis, throughout his childhood, along with his three older siblings — brothers Brandon and Josh, and sister Bianca. His father, Rickie, was a four-year starting forward at the University of Houston from 1983-87, and he coached many of Justise’s youth teams.

But as Justise became older, and he learned more about the dynamics between his mom and dad, he became confused, angered and wary of both parents. He and his mother were extremely close — she calls him Boo Boo Bear — but he became resentful of his mother dating other men. And as much as she blanketed him with “I love yous” throughout his life, he said he also felt bitterness from his mother for his having a relationship with his father.

“There were a lot of forces going on within my family at the time, just that divorced-household dynamic,” Winslow said. “Some things from the past were being revealed and explained — truths revealed, some lies covering up the truth … the whole family was going through a good amount.”

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He was recovering from his shoulder being repaired, but his mind was becoming more damaged by the day. His career had suffered a setback, and the more he reflected on his personal life, the more he didn’t like it. He treated women poorly. He often ignored family. And worse yet, he knew he was doing it, and still continued. He said there were days when he said he didn’t know if he belonged, and he wasn’t talking about the Heat, or the NBA.

“Pfft,” Winslow exhaled. “In life. I’ve done things I’m not proud of in my personal life. Whether it’s upholding relationships, or doing my part in relationships, reaching out to family, or isolating myself …. I was just really hard on myself.”

So, he made that home in darkness. He was depressed about his injury, anxious about his future and confused about his past. The drinking and clubbing could numb the pain, but the same problems remained when he awoke.

“There were days I didn’t want to get out of bed,” Winslow said. “You add in the drinking, and the partying stuff in the offseason … I went down a very dangerous path. I created a routine and I got caught in that routine and it almost consumed me.”

By 2019, he was back in the rotation for the Heat, but his relationships were fraying. With his family. With his coach. With his girlfriend.

They each knocked at the door of Winslow’s house of darkness, wondering if he would answer.

The first knock came from Josh. It did not go well.

It was supposed to be a weekend fishing trip in the Bahamas, two brothers embarking on a summer excursion. Private jet, private island, play some cards, do some deep-sea fishing … and perhaps, Josh thought, a time to connect with his troubled little brother.

The brothers had been close since they shared a bedroom as kids growing up in Houston, Justise occupying the top bunk and Josh the bottom. Justise’s first high school dunk as a freshman came on a lob pass from his senior brother. Davis, their mother, could brag that her boys never fought growing up.

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That would end on this trip.

A year earlier, Josh had received that concerned phone call from Spoelstra, which heightened his awareness that Justise was fighting some demons. In truth, Josh was immersed in his own personal struggles. He had attended Dartmouth, where he played football, and two of his college roommates had recently died — one by suicide and the other from drinking.

“That s— really, really affected me. I realized I didn’t speak up for them,” Josh said. “I went through survivor’s guilt, because there were times in both of their lives that I could have stepped up and said something.”

He wasn’t going to sit idle while Justise struggled.

“When I saw Justise was going through something, I thought it was time for me to step up and say something,” Josh said.

He confronted Justise about his habits. About how he had become distant to the family.

“I asked him, ‘What’s your healthy hobby, dude? What do you do that is fun, that is healthy, that you have no problem telling mom?'” Josh said. “And he didn’t have an answer for that. I was like one of the only people in his life at that time to be like, ‘Bro, you are f—— up. And it’s not on the basketball court.'”

Justise became defensive. And combative. There was cussing. Then pushing. Then punches. It was an all-out fight, and Josh said it lasted for four hours.

“No shirts. Sand in the teeth, the mouth, the hair,” Justise said. “Scratches, bruises, punches. Pinning each other down. Screaming, yelling, cussing.”

Josh said they took breaks. “I would say, “Go get some water, I ain’t through with you.’ I like to think he felt me the next day.”

As their bodies pounded into the sand and against each other, it served as something of an awakening for Justise. At first, he thought it was significant because it was the first time he stood up to his older brother. But the next morning, as the brothers flew home, it was obvious the fight represented something deeper.

“As we rode back on the plane together, we looked at each other and said, ‘Yeah, we need help,'” Josh said.

Josh entered a 30-day treatment center for marijuana. And for the first time, Justise became earnest about escaping his darkness.

“That fight told me I have to do some more soul-searching and look at myself in the mirror. As much as it was physical, it was emotional, and like about healing and traumas,” Justise said. “It brought me and my brother even closer, and shook things enough to kind of spiral us in the right direction.”

That’s when the next knock at the house of darkness came. It was Spoelstra, the Heat coach.

By the summer of 2019, a gulf had formed between Winslow and Spoelstra, and both knew it.

“Oh yeah. We f— clashed. We bumped heads for sure,” Winslow said.

As Winslow struggled with the mental side of being injured, Spoelstra could see him straying from the team. He wasn’t pulling for his teammates, and although he was at practices and team meetings, he wasn’t present.

Spoelstra valued Winslow’s varied skill set — he started him at center in a playoff game his rookie season, and in his second season, started him at point guard.

“Justise’s skill set is so diverse, and versatile and unique that it doesn’t fit the conventional boxes of what everyone thinks a player should be,” Spoelstra said. “But he is a winner.”

Spoelstra was also drawn to Winslow the person.

“Justise is really intuitive, highly intelligent, and I find him super interesting,” Spoelstra said. “He has a curious mind. When we weren’t on the same page what we were drawn to each other about was competitiveness, how we view competition. We are very similar.”

Still, they weren’t connecting. Winslow might have been listening to his coach talk about being selfless and giving, but the words weren’t resonating.

So it was with some trepidation that Winslow accepted an unusual offer from Spoelstra that summer: Join him at the L.A. home of professional surfer Laird Hamilton.

It was a last-gasp attempt by the coach to reach his player.

“We weren’t on the same page about a lot of stuff,” Spoelstra said. “But I really had his best interests at heart, and I wanted to impact him in an unconventional way.”

Hamilton had them dive into a pool while holding dumbbells. Among other things, it was an exercise designed to control your emotions, to not panic, and draw strength and confidence off the person in front of them.

“Justise was phenomenal with it, just locked in,” Spoelstra said. “I freaked out. Hated it. As soon as I got to the bottom, I was like, ‘What am I doing?’ I dropped the weights, panicked and went up.”

Hamilton also had them do a series of breathing exercises, as well as going from a sauna to a cold pool. A day they’ll never forget.

“That day changed my life forever, honestly,” Winslow said. “I just felt amazing. High on life. Happy. It was one of the best moments of my life.”

It sparked an important change. Winslow had always been in good shape, but from that day, he committed to a higher level of fitness. The high he chased with drinking and clubbing was replaced by chasing what he felt that day at Hamilton’s.

“I found a higher frequency, and I wanted to live in that frequency,” Winslow said. “It was a frequency where the stress was gone, the anxiety was gone. I wanted to maintain that, I wanted to find that happiness, that gratitude, that acceptance and presentness. I wanted to find that every day.”

In the summer of 2019, Winslow adopted a near-daily ritual where he would awake before dawn and capture the day’s sunrise with his camera. There were layers to the meaning behind the exercise. To wake at 5 a.m., he had to cut out his nightlife. Taking pictures of the sunrises addressed the “healthy hobby” with which his brother challenged him. And to begin healing some of his damaged relationships, he began inviting those close to him to take part in the sunrise.

He called it his Morning SHIFT — an acronym for See How I Function Truthfully.

He experienced sunrises in Miami, the Bahamas, Colombia, Cabo, Durham, N.C., and his guest list was as varied as it was long: coach Spoelstra, his mother, his housekeeper, Escobar, former Duke teammates Josh Hairston and Tyler Thornton, his brother Josh, his trainer, his best friend.

There was something about the serenity, beauty and purity of the moments that allowed Winslow to be vulnerable and transparent. He said he cried with his housekeeper, his mother and his girlfriend.

“Spo and I didn’t cry, but we talked,” Winslow said. “And talked like, just as men. Not as coach and player.”

He turned the experiences into a project, blending photos and video into a music video that was shown in Miami’s Art Basel.

“That project gave me a lot of fulfillment,” Winslow said. “Emotionally and mental-health wise it gave me people to talk to and open up to … it was a chance to be vulnerable. And I was sober, too. It just shifted my mind, it got me right, it centered me.”

It was in that state of mind that he finally approached healing two of his most important relationships: his mother and girlfriend.

When he asked his mother to go on his Morning SHIFT, she was surprised. For years, she felt he had distanced himself from family, which she brought up during a family trip to the Bahamas in 2018 for her birthday. Winslow was detached from the family for the first few days, but no one wanted to say anything.

“His whole vibe was off,” Davis said. “But I was the only one who went into the fire.”

It was during that trip, in the hotel lobby, that Winslow broke down in his mother’s arms.

“There was a lot of resentment for myself, regret of past actions, and I just started telling her how I feel,” Winslow said. “My inability to connect, inability to be selfless, inability to genuinely care about others … and my ability to hurt people, women, purposefully or indirectly. Just me thinking the world only revolves around me.”

Added Davis: “We were both sitting there crying, apologizing, hugging each other, so I thought it was good. But did I realize he needed more help? Absolutely. But at that point, he wouldn’t listen to me.”

That’s why she was surprised when he asked her to join his Morning SHIFT.

They went to Miami Beach, and as the sun rose, she could sense her son was vulnerable. They sat apart — he was a couple of feet in front of her — but she said she continually assured him she loved him.

“And I just kind of watched him break down. It was nothing I really said other than I loved him, continuously, and that everything was going to be all right,” Davis said. “I think that was the start of the breaking point.”

That summer, Winslow and Escobar had hit a rough patch in their relationship. They had met when she was a dancer for the Heat, and they were friends before becoming romantic. But they parted ways until Winslow began reaching out to repair the relationship. His invitation to the Morning SHIFT was a pivotal moment.

“That whole project was the first step in him doing something good for himself,” Escobar said. “His world was kind of falling apart, and I could tell he was trying to put it back together.”

They went behind FTX Arena, where the Heat play, and overlooking the water, they watched the sun rise. Escobar sat on a bench, her head resting on her left hand. From behind, Winslow photographed the moment. The image is blown up and in their Portland-area home.

It’s the second-most cherished keepsake in their home.

There was a day in the winter of 2021 when Winslow went to a Memphis pharmacy and bought three pregnancy tests. The year prior, Miami had traded him to Memphis, and with the Grizzlies his career hit new lows. There was a back injury, and once that healed, COVID hit. When the season was set to resume in the Orlando bubble, he suffered a serious hip injury.

But on this day, he was happy. Excited. Escobar had called him from Miami with news: she was pregnant. As she was flying to Memphis, Winslow bought the pregnancy tests.

He peed on two of the tests. She peed on the other.

“Just to make sure they worked,” he said.

Her stick indeed indicated Escobar was pregnant.

“We kept the pregnancy strip,” Winslow said with a wide smile.

For all that has happened in Winslow’s quest for happiness, everyone agrees Winslow becoming a father was the most influential event.

As Winslow anticipated the birth of his son, he felt he had found his purpose. He felt fulfilled.

“It was knowing I now had a bigger calling, that life was bigger than me,” Winslow said. “Someone was going to be always watching me, mimicking me. At the time, I was still in a funk, rehabbing my injuries, but I had a bigger, driving force behind me now. I wasn’t just doing it for myself anymore. I was able to block out any negativity because we were planning his room, his nursery, his gender reveal … it gave me something positive to think about rather than have my mind drift.”

Niko was born Nov. 15, 2021 in Los Angeles, when Justise played for the Clippers. Two and a half months later, Winslow was traded to Portland.

In Portland, Winslow joined a team that wasn’t trying to win. For the first time since his early seasons in Miami, he could play freely, confidently. He flourished, averaging 10.7 points, 6.3 rebounds and 2.9 assists in 27 minutes a game.

For once, both his career and personal life were harmonious.

“I can tell he is happy because he smiles more,” his mother said. “He’s taken control of his life.”

At home, he likes to wrestle with Niko, or try out different toys, or shower his son in tickles.

“He just has so much joy … and I think you can definitely see the good parts in me come out in him,” Winslow said. “The happiness, the joy, the selflessness.”

“Niko has really brought out a light in him,” Escobar said. “It’s just a different version of Justise.

A week before Niko took his first steps, Winslow suffered a badly sprained left ankle in Oklahoma City, which has sidelined him since Dec. 21, which has coincided with the Blazers’ tailspin. Portland is 4-9 since his injury as his defense and play-making have been sorely missed.

Unlike his previous injuries, which could send him into a funk, he has navigated this injury without struggle.

“It’s felt pretty easy,” Winslow said. “I’m in a good spot.”

He is averaging 6.8 points, 5.0 rebounds and 3.4 assists and twice flirted with triple-doubles. Coach Chauncey Billups says the “Three J’s” have changed the Blazers this season — Jerami Grant, Josh Hart and Justise. Billups isn’t the only one who has taken notice.

“I check his box scores all the time,” Spoelstra said. “Because he is one of the guys I continue to root for. Every player’s journey is different, and it’s never linear.

When Winslow suffered his ankle injury, requiring first a boot, then crutches, Escobar joked that both men in her life couldn’t walk. But after Niko took his giant, little steps, she surmised that God had taken Justise’s powers and transferred them to Niko. It was their holiday gift, but not the only one.

Shortly after Niko’s first steps, the three hugged in the kitchen. And that’s when Niko for the first time said “da-da.”

(Photo illustration: Samuel Richardson / The Athletic; photo: Kate Frese / NBAE via Getty)