DeShawn Stevenson (born April 3, 1981 in Fresno, California) is a American professional basketball player currently with the Washington Wizards of the NBA. He originally committed to the University of Kansas, but decided to enter the NBA directly from Washington Union High School in his hometown of Fresno, and was picked by the Utah Jazz with the 23rd selection of the 2000 NBA Draft.

DeShawn Stevenson was born in Fresno, California to Genice Popps and Darryl C. Stevenson. A year after DeShawn's birth, Darryl Stevenson was hospitalized for threatening family members, allegedly attacking his brother with a butcher knife. DeShawn's parents never married, although when the boy was 3, his father signed a court order agreeing he had a duty to support his son. Two months after being released from a Fresno County mental health facility, Darryl Stevenson held up a gas station with an accomplice who held a knife to a woman's throat. Darryl was found incompetent to stand trial and wound up in Atascadero State Hospital. Psychiatrists diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic. He eventually was placed on probation, but arrested again for kidnapping a woman in 1985 and jailed in April 1986. In 1993, When DeShawn was 12, his father Darryl murdered his own mother, Clara, by strangling her. Darryl Stevenson died in Corcoran State Prison of lung cancer at age 36 in 1999. Tattooed on his chest was one word: "DeShawn."

When DeShawn began his high school career, he lived with his Godparents so that he could establish residency in Easton. This was the same school that his father played at. He played varsity as a freshman and traveled in a summer league. College recruiters came to the farm town to see him play. In his junior year, DeShawn led the Division III team to a state championship. After DeShawn committed to play at Kansas, Head Coach Roy Williams called him the "most gifted recruit ever". DeShawn averaged 30.4 points, 9.7 rebounds and 6.2 assists a game his senior year. He led the West to a 146–120 win in the McDonald's All-American high school game in March with a game-high 25 points. He also won the slam-dunk crown. DeShawn flirted with skipping college and declaring his eligibility to go pro, a decision that upset his mother. The Jayhawks lost their future star when a surprisingly impressive jump in his SAT score caught the attention of the Educational Testing Service, which "red-flagged" it, making him temporarily ineligible to play. DeShawn could have appealed and explained how he had managed to improve his score from 450 as a sophomore to 1,150 as a senior. Instead, Stevenson took the SAT a second time and received less than a 650, well below the NCAA minimum of 820.