VALLEJO >> Like an innumerable number of other Bay Area kids watching television on May 11, 2007, 6-year-old Chance McMillian was awestruck when Warriors guard Baron Davis cocked back his right arm and threw down an iconic poster dunk through Jazz forward Andrei Kirilenko.

After his beloved “We Believe” Warriors finished off the 125-105 victory to cut Utah’s second-round series lead to 2-1, McMillian sprinted out of his family’s home in east Vallejo and made a beeline to the basketball goal rooted in the driveway.

“I was trying to act like I was dunking on someone like how he did in that game,” McMillian told the Bay Area News Group.

He did his best to mimic Davis’ fearless drives and tricky handles too, doing what he thought was a perfect facsimile. That streaky Davis-like jump shot though?

McMillian’s mom remembered it needed some work.

“He knocked a couple of shingles off the roof,” Judy Bowers told the Bay Area News Group.

His long-range shooting has improved drastically in the 18 years since that day, rippling nets rather than damaging roofs and becoming the main weapon of a sharpshooter who led Texas Tech to the 2025 Elite 8.

McMillian, 23, had to undergo surgery on a stress fracture in his left ankle a few weeks prior to the NBA Draft, and recovery typically takes six to eight weeks.

Though confined to a boot and in need of a scooter to move around, and unable to play in Summer League, Golden State decided his smooth shot was intriguing enough to sign the East Bay native as an undrafted free agent.

“I’m a Golden State Warrior,” is what McMillian, who was still recovering from surgery in Lubbock, told his mom over the phone.

They were slightly bummed out by the knowledge that he would not be able to wear the blue and gold during the summer exhibition games at Chase Center and later Las Vegas, but McMillian has remained optimistic.

“I just see this as a little roadblock, not the end of the world,” McMillian said.

After all, this is not the first time McMillian has had to overcome less-than-ideal circumstances during his hoops journey.

His fascination with hoops began as a 5-year-old when his older siblings Joi and Justin would play in youth leagues, guzzling down Gatorade during breaks.

McMillian began to demand Gatorade too, with his mom eventually giving him a watered-down mixture, and he began to associate the sport with the ubiquitous liquid.

He grew out of his obsession with the energy drink, but McMillian’s love of basketball, and his height, only grew.

McMillian often attended basketball camps around the Bay Area, including one put on by a baby-faced Warriors rookie named Steph Curry in 2009, and watched as many Warriors games as he could on TV while also going to his fair share of games at Oracle.

Sprouting to 6-foot-3 as a teenager, McMillian became a two-time Tri-County Athletic League MVP at St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School in Vallejo.

After transferring to the crosstown public school Bethel – and enrolling in a class at Solano Community College for good measure – McMillian was named TCAL MVP for the third time.

“Chance is a hooper now,” said Joey Fuca, who also works with Miami Heat forward Keshad Johnson. “He knows basketball, he’s a junkie.”

But even though the guard was also a standout on the AAU circuit, playing for Fuca’s LakeShow program and later the famed Oakland Soldiers, college interest was light.