MANILA – Kai Sotto is not closing his doors on playing in the NBA Summer League after going undrafted during the 2022 NBA Rookie Draft on Thursday night (Friday in the Philippines) at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
The 7-foot-3 Filipino big man clarified that he has yet to finalize his next move after his agent earlier said that Sotto is choosing Gilas Pilipinas over NBA Summer League.
“Thank you to everyone for your support and kind words tonight. I won’t stop pursuing the dream of being in the NBA…..this is not the end,” Sotto wrote in a Twitter post on Friday afternoon.
“I also want to clarify that no decision has been made about me not playing in the (NBA) Summer League. My agent misspoke,” he added, pertaining to his agent Joel Bell.
Bell said in a virtual interview after the NBA Draft that Sotto is not playing in the NBA Summer League and will also not take any two-way contract or Exhibit 10 contracts this season.
“He’s gonna pass up Summer League and play for the Philippines,” Bell said in an interview with PlayItRight TV. “He has multiple Summer League invites but he opts to play for (Gilas Pilipinas).”
Bell further said the tentative plans was for Sotto to return home on July 3 in time for Gilas’ 2023 Fiba World Cup Asian qualifiers third window matches and in the 2022 Fiba Asia Cup in Indonesia next month.
Just like Sotto, two more NBA hopefuls with Filipino lineage in Remy Martin and Ron Harper Jr. was not selected in the annual draft, where 58 names were called this year.
Harper, however, quickly found a home in the NBA after being signed to a two-way contract by the Toronto Raptors, according to a report by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
The 6-foot-4 Harper, whose mother has roots from Ilocos, was the son of 15-time NBA veteran and five-time NBA champion (all with the Chicago Bulls) Ron Harper./PN
