Hamilton for the Holidays

Out shopping.

The Pistons’ three-time All-Star - along with Rodney Stuckey, Austin Daye and DaJuan Summers - went Christmas shopping with 25 children at the Meijer in Auburn Hills. Hamilton’s Rip City Foundation teamed up with Meijer and the Pistons to identify children in need and give each child $200 to hand pick what they’d like for Christmas.

“We know the economy has been bad lately and a lot of people are in tough times,” Hamilton said. “We just want to play Santa Claus and give back to people who are less privileged than us.”

Hamilton set the tone as he followed 9-year-old Arianna Griffin, who pushed her cart toward the aisle with Barbies. Before she got there, she stopped in front of some bright purple jump ropes.

“Can I get a jump rope?” she asked.

“You can get whatever you want,” he said.

The power of that phrase - which Hamilton recited often, adding gems like, “Momma can’t tell you to put that down” - was like a different world to some children, said Robbie Watkins, who helped escort Arianna and nine others from the Detroit Rescue Mission.

“It was really good because he told the children, ‘get what you want,’ and nobody has ever told them to get what they wanted,” she said. “They really appreciated it. But you know children - when you say, ‘get what you want,’ they want everything in the store.”

Arianna did her best to control the shopaholic within, and when she couldn’t - well, that was OK, too.

“He let us, if we got too much stuff, he’d say, go ahead and take it,” said Arianna, a hula-hoop still around her waist.

About 30 minutes earlier, Hamilton had inadvertently opened hula-hoop auditions between several girls, who swung the plastic hoops around their waists right there in the aisle.

“Got to get it going faster, there you go!” Hamilton encouraged on girl; “Oh, OK, there she goes!” to another.

Caught up in the moment, Hamilton thought the hula-hoops were a must-have. Alas, most of the girls put the hula-hoops back and returned to the doll aisle.

The sight of Hamilton clowning around was a familiar one for his wife, T.J., who watches him act the same way with their 2-year-old son, Richard Hamilton II.

“It just reminds me of how he is with our son,” she said. “He’s a bigger kid than our son so I know he really enjoys coming out doing this for the kids and putting a smile on their faces.”

T.J. said her husband’s holiday shopping habits aren’t much different than a baseline buzzer-beater. Just in the nick of time.

“He’s so last minute,” said T.J., laughing. “Hopefully he’ll get it done. He always seems to pull through.”

On cue, Hamilton made eye contact with his wife after he helped the kids inspect a display case of video games, which a Meijer employee had unlocked for them.

“I think I should start shopping,” he said.

“I think so, too,” T.J. replied.

While Hamilton and Summers were working at the register, Daye and Stuckey continued to venture the aisles with their families. They shopped for so long that Daye made a rookie mistake and exceeded the $200 limit.

Rather than making the kids put something back, Daye said he’d pay for the difference. That’s just how things went at Rip Hamilton’s “get whatever you want” holiday extravaganza.

No items were returnable.