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Inside The Huskies

Isaiah Stewart Woke Up on Saturday No Longer a Teenager

The former University of Washington standout celebrated his birthday, but it was no coming-of-age moment.
Dan Raley|
Isaiah Stewart Woke Up on Saturday No Longer a Teenager
Isaiah Stewart Woke Up on Saturday No Longer a Teenager

Isaiah Stewart has been a lot of places, and done a lot of things, but on May 22, he woke up in a world completely foreign to him. 

He no longer was a teenager.

On Saturday, Stewart celebrated his 20th birthday.

Imagine all of the things the former University of Washington basketball player accomplished in his first 19 years on the planet.

We'll go through the Isaiah Stewart checklist right here.

When he was 17, the 6-foot-9, 250-pounder made himself one of the top two or three basketball recruits in the nation.

He received the Naismith national Player of the Year Award.

The Rochester, New York, native competed for the U.S. in the FIBA World Cup in Argentina.

At 18, he packed up his things and traveled all the way across the country to come play for the Huskies.

Stewart took part in basketball games held in Italy, Alaska and Hawaii as a collegian.

He surprised the Seattle press corps when acknowledging he was leaving an interview session for bible study.

Playing a lone season for a bad Husky team, he nonetheless became a first-team All-Pac-12 selection and made the conference all-freshman team.

After he turned 19, Stewart became a first-round NBA draft pick, the 16th player chosen overall, for the Detroit Pistons.

He played in 68 games for a usually overmatched Pistons squad, starting 14.

Stewart earned an instant nickname "Beef Stew."

The fans loved him and his desire.

He went nose to nose with and didn't back down from Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was two inches taller, seven years older and didn't care for his fearless play.

Stewart drew a NBA rookie salary of $3,121,080.

He became a millionaire three times over as a teen.

He'd played a 32-game college season and those 68 outings as a pro, all before leaving his teens.

At 20, he's still not legal in most places to enter a bar and order a beer.

A health nut, he's probably not pining to take in that experience.

Outside of picking bad basketball teams, or getting picked by them, the upstate New Yorker and former Husky big man has accomplished an incredible amount of stuff in his young life.

Whoever coined the phrase "terrible teens" has never met Isaiah Stewart.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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