Dante Allen, son of Heat assistant coach Malik Allen, an emerging star at Riviera Prep
In the hours leading up to the Miami Heat’s matchup against the Milwaukee Bucks on Friday, Heat assistant coach Malik Allen was filled with anxiety.
Not necessarily because of the Heat’s game in Milwaukee that night, but instead because of a game that was happening more than 1,000 miles away back home in Miami. His son Dante Allen and Miami Riviera Prep were preparing to host Fort Lauderdale Westminster Academy for the right to advance to the state final four.
“Listen, I get stressed,” Allen, 44, said. “He’s my son, at the end of the day. So I can compartmentalize things. But earlier in the day, I was nervous. It was a big game. ... I want my kid to play well. I’m human.”
Dante was excellent that night, leading Riviera Prep’s boys basketball team to a 56-54 comeback win over Westminster Academy that clinched the program’s third appearance at the state final four since 2019. Trailing by 18 points with about three minutes left in the third quarter, Dante scored 15 of his 17 points during a second-half surge that included five points in the final 21.1 seconds to bring the Bulldogs all the way back for the victory.
When Allen checked his phone following the Heat’s loss to the Bucks on Friday, he had so many text messages waiting for him that he could barely make out what happened in his son’s game. But after sending a few text messages to his wife, Kara, he quickly realized he missed a memorable performance from Dante.
“He called me a little bit later,” Dante said. “He was just happy for me. He said it sucks that he couldn’t be there.”
Behind Dante’s late-game heroics, Riviera Prep (25-6) remained alive in the pursuit of its first boys basketball state title after falling to Tallahassee Florida High by one point in last year’s state championship game.
Riviera Prep will take on Tampa Catholic at noon on Wednesday in a Class 3A state semifinal at the RP Funding Center in Lakeland. If the Bulldogs win, they would face either Windermere Prep or Jacksonville Providence in the final at 10 a.m. on Saturday.
Allen won’t be able to attend Wednesday’s game because the Heat hosts the Philadelphia 76ers on Wednesday night. But if Riviera Prep advances to Saturday morning’s state final, Allen plans to be there even with the Heat playing a home back-to-back that begins Friday night against the New York Knicks and ends Saturday night against the Atlanta Hawks.
“I won’t be able to go Wednesday,” Allen said. “But if they make it [to the final], I’ll either hop in the car on Friday night or I’ll get up early Saturday and go to the game and then drive back after they play on Saturday to go to the arena for our game.”
Dante, 16, is averaging 21.8 points, 7.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 2.4 steals per game this season as a sophomore. Listed at 6-4 and 210 pounds, he already has offers from Miami, Michigan, Memphis, Villanova, Florida and FSU.
Allen, who played for eight different teams during a 10-year NBA career after going undrafted of out of Villanova in 2000, believes Dante is already “far better than I was when I was a sophomore.”
Allen describes Dante as “unique with the things he does from a coach’s perspective and how it relates to team play and the score” because “he just does winning stuff” and “he thinks the game.” Riviera Prep coach Anthony Shahbaz describes Dante as a two-way player “who always makes the right play, always makes the correct pass” and will “pass up a shot that’s open for a guy that’s even more open.”
“He leads us in in every single major statistical category on the team. I’ve never seen anything like it,” Shahbaz said.
Dante credits his father for his love of the sport.
“He’s definitely the reason I started playing,” Dante said. “The more I did it, the more he started to help me and he’s definitely the reason I’m still playing today and why I want to play seriously.”
Basketball has only strengthened the father-son bond between them, with Allen making time during the busy NBA schedule to squeeze in frequent workouts with Dante.
It’s common for Allen to return from a Heat trip at 3 a.m. and invite his son to the gym for a basketball workout the next morning or afternoon.
“He’s calling me the night before saying, ‘You want to go get shots up around 12 p.m,’” Dante said. “I’m never against it. He’ll get up, put his shoes on and he’ll come ready to work as hard as I do most of the time. That kind of motivates me to work hard because I see how hard he works and how much he wants me to get better.”
For Allen, the value in those workouts extends beyond basketball.
“I know he has things that he wants to keep working on and we can do those. But for me, it’s our time to catch up,” Allen said.
“Just the fact that he likes to do that and wants to be there, that means just as much. I’m the proud dad who gets to sit and watch his kid play a lot. But at the same time, when you get that one-on-one time with no one else there, that’s the time that you relish relationship wise.”
There aren’t too many similarities in their games — Dante is a wing with guard skills and Allen was a 6-10 big man. But Dante is navigating his own basketball journey while still representing his father, sporting a No. 35 jersey like Allen did for most of his NBA career.
“It’s cool for me,” Allen said. “He’s just grown into it. That’s what he has identified with. It’s cool that he’s coming into our number, but now he’s coming into his own as a young man and as a player. As a dad, that’s what you want. You don’t want them to be walking in your shadow. You want them to eventually step out of your shadow and be who he is and who he’s becoming.”
Helping Riviera Prep win its first boys basketball state championship would be another step in that direction for Dante. Riviera Prep opened as a high school in 2011 after being a K-8 school since originally opening in 1950.
In addition to Dante, Riviera Prep has been led by 6-3, 190-pound senior wing Cooper Josefsberg, who is averaging 11.9 points, 3.7 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game.
Senior and 6-6, 220-pound forward Joachim Radcliffe-Ametepe is averaging 8.7 points, 6.1 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game.
As one of Riviera Prep’s youngest players, eighth-grader Myles Fuentes is averaging 9.7 points per game and has been key to its backcourt.
“It’s everything,” Dante said when asked what winning a state title would mean to him. “It’s what you practice in the offseason for. It’s what you get that extra work in for. For me, it really means so much. To get that first and to be a part of that, it would mean so much to me.”
STATE TOURNAMENT
Where: RP Funding Center, 701 W. Lime St., Lakeland.
When: Wednesday through Saturday.
Schedule (Dade/Broward teams only) - Wednesday - Class 3A semifinal: Riviera Prep vs. Tampa Catholic, noon; Class 2A semifinal: Sagemont vs. North Florida Educational, 4; Thursday - Class 4A semifinal: Mater Lakes vs. St. Petersburg Gibbs, 10 a.m.; Class 5A semifinal: Belen Jesuit vs. Orlando Jones, 2; Friday - Class 7A semifinal: Columbus vs. Orlando Colonial, 12:30; Class 2A final: 4:30; Saturday - Class 3A final: 10 a.m.; Class 4A final: 12:30; Class 5A final: 3; Class 7A final: 8.
This story was originally published February 27, 2023 at 2:21 PM.
