Liv Harness’s list of accomplishments read like she’s a professional athlete.
Harness has her own shoe deal, along with NIL deals with Gatorade and Nintendo.
She has more than 100,000 followers on Instagram and hosts basketball camps across the country.
As a 10-year-old, she roasted Shaq during an appearance on the NBA on TNT.
“I was cracking jokes,” Harness said. “I told Shaq that I would break his ankles in a move and that my free throws were better than his.”
She also messages just about daily with Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade, is close with four-time WNBA All-Star Kelsey Plum, gets bible verses sent to her each day from former NBA Coach of the Year Monty Williams, and is close family friends with golfing great Phil Mickelson.
But Harness isn’t a professional athlete. She’s only in eighth grade.
“I probably had just graduated from picking my nose,” joked AAU coach Justin Binion.
“This kid has probably accomplished more by the age of 15 than a lot of kids,” Binion added. “Her presence and maturity, it’s all impressive. Having been on national TV and talked to some of the more famous people in the world, she’s a pretty cool kid and has a pretty cool story.”
It’s a story that began on the West Coast, but traveled east in January when Harness began attending Spire Academy, an international boarding and day school for high school and post-graduate student-athletes, located in Geneva, Ohio.
Harness, already with a Division I offer, is now playing her debut season with local AAU organization SLAAM, and was so impressive in early practices that this 2030 player is now competing on SLAAM’s 2028 team, which consists of high school sophomores. The squad also includes the likes of Belle Vernon’s Aubrey Brown, Peters Township’s Taylor McCullough and Norwin’s Aubrey Graney.
Harness is a big talent, and this highly-personable teenager isn’t short on confidence.
“I would say that I’m a great defender,” she said. “I’m definitely willing to dive on the floor, go for loose balls, clap in peoples’ faces on defense. I’m not afraid to try to get into peoples’ heads, that’s for sure. I’m a very aggressive defensive player. And I’m a knockdown shooter.”
And Harness does it while almost always being the shortest player on the floor. She’s 5-foot-3.
“I blame my parents for that,” Harness said with a laugh. “I get mad at my mom all the time. She’s 5-2 ½ and my dad is 5-8.”
But Harness is fearless, Binion said.
“When you’re small, you need to have a little bit of a chip on your shoulder. She plays with a chip,” Binion said of Harness, a point guard. “What she lacks in size she makes up for in her ball handling, her heart and just her sheer will to out-compete whoever she’s going up against.”
Before playing for SLAAM, Harness said she had never met any of her teammates, but many of them knew her from following her on social media. Harness is an influencer who has amassed a massive Instagram following of 106K. She’s also on Facebook, TikTok and X, and even has her own channel on YouTube.
Her father, Mike, would video Harness doing drills in the family’s driveway or garage before posting them on social media. By the age of 10, she was playing pickup games against boys and men, sometimes 1-on-1, and posting those, as well. In one of the videos, a competitor was talking smack, saying it’s easier to play with a girls basketball than a men’s ball. Harness didn’t care for the way he was talking, so she threw the ball at his face, retrieved it, and then scored.
“That went viral,” she said. “That got on SportsCenter, House of Highlights. I ended up going on NBA on TNT with Shaq and Candace Parker because of that video. So that blew up and I started posting more and more. I really noticed that I have a special talent with regards to popularity online, so I posted more, got an agent, and here I am.”
Harness now posts three times per week, saying she posts “a mix of everything,” from game highlights and training clips to drill tutorials and creative videos of things like dribbling a football and catching a frisbee upside down.
“You see a lot of influencers with millions of followers commenting and hyping her up and sharing some of her stuff. It’s interesting to see,” Binion said. “It’s kind of cool to have a kid who’s got some notoriety, especially around the game of basketball like that nationally.”
Her popularity has gained Harness many celebrity friends. Harness said that she and Wade have been messaging regularly since the TNT appearance. In addition to having a close relationship with Plum, Harness said she had dinner recently with Chelsea Gray, a four-time WNBA champion and six-time all-star.
Along with the social media stardom has come endorsement deals. Five months ago, Harness signed a shoe deal with Serious Players Only, and has additional NIL deals with Gatorade and Nintendo, opportunities that provide Harness with money and products/gear.
Another one of Harness’s deals is with Re-Lyte, a company that sponsors her Liv Your Legend basketball clinics. Harness and her family travel around the country hosting and coaching the clinics. One of them held last year consisted of foster children in Utah, and drew about 100 campers.
Harness said she and her family have lived all over. They went back and forth between California and Arizona for years before living briefly in Utah, where her older sister, Tatiana, played high school basketball. Tatiana is also a social media success who has her own podcast. Harness’s parents live near Spire, and her father, along with Tatiana, coach youngest sister Lili, 9, on one of the younger SLAAM teams.
Harness has big goals in the sport, one of them being playing Division I college basketball. She already has one opportunity to do so, as Robert Morris extended the eighth grader an offer last month. You might say Harness was just a little excited upon hearing the news from Robert Morris coach Chandler McCabe.
“I’m the biggest hugger ever. I literally stood up and gave every single coach a hug,” Harness recalled. “I did it because I was so happy. It was a feeling that hard work really does pay off. But it also gave me the motivation to keep working and push myself even harder because I think everyone likes options, so if you get one and keep improving, then more are gonna come.”
While many in the basketball world already know of Harness, Binion said that as more and more coaches see her play, many additional offers will follow.
“I’ve had a few conversations with some coaches that have already said that she’s on their radar,” Binion said. “She’s already light years ahead of a lot of the players in her class, so I believe as the eyes continue to be on the 2030s more and more often, she’ll be one of the standouts.”