Hello, Ballers! DiscoDad here, giving you an update on Kai Sotto who is one of the rising stars in the Philippine Basketball. Even though his NBA G League career period was cut short, Kai Sotto is back on the court. He is now back on social media after a lengthy time of media absence. Despite the recent controversy, Sotto remains keen to demonstrate that his quest to be the NBA’s first homegrown Filipino player is still on track. Wow, imagine how motivated Kai Sotto is to achieve his dreams. That’s the kind of player whom we should look up to. The 18-year-old center is now playing in the Smith League Open Run in Cincinnati, Ohio. Cholo Anonuevo, a 6-foot-4 forward of the Far Eastern University of the Philippines, also joined him in training.
The caption on the video of the scrimmage in Cincinnati wrote, “Kai Sotto Dominates Smith League Open Run.” The 7-foot-3 Kai (with a wingspan of 7’5″) practically stepped out and deemed reaching out to the 10-foot rim for a standing dunk looked too natural. WATCH the scrimmage of the Smith League by Frankie Vision, Kai Sotto demonstrates his supremacy by doing a no-jump dunk. Skip to the 1:20 mark if you want to see Kai’s supremacy.
He stands out from the rest, constantly showing off several dunks and shooting from a long distance. Sotto was spotted as Felix Flores, Stoudemire’s trainer, uploaded an Instagram story of Sotto and the Brooklyn Nets player development assistant working out together.
Take a look at how Kai Sotto is remaining focused on his basketball career while he plots his next moves. Kai shared a video of himself working out with Amar’e Stoudemire, a former NBA star. The clip was first released by Felix Flores, the owner of sports performance facility The Miami Perimeter. We can see Kai’s improvement and determination went up like crazy. He did not let himself down despite the sad experience he had last month with the G League Ignite. Instead, this made him much stronger and confident to make himself more skillful and strong.
Even Ramon Fernandez, a Philippine basketball icon, believes the Filipino teen star is on track to achieve his dream. Sotto is technically a free agent upon parting ways with Ignite but is still associated with the Gilas Pilipinas program.
After all, according to Fernandez, moving to the United States was the best way for Sotto to achieve his dream of being the first full-blooded Filipino in the NBA.
“For me, he made the right choice to go the States to train and all that,” Ramon Fernandez said in Filipino on the PSA forum.
“He did the right thing. He should look for the highest level of competition abroad, and he can only find that in the States or even Europe,” said Fernandez.
“I work every single day to get better for me to reach that goal. I’m doing it for my family, I’m doing it for them.” – Kai Sotto said in the NBA G League Ignite interview
Let’s just be patient and wait for Kai Sotto to fly high and make it to the NBA. For Kai Sotto, we know what you are capable of. Just keep on doing what you love and let your game do the talk. That’s a wrap for this week Kai Sotto’s update. Stay tuned for the next update of Kai Sotto’s NBA dream journey, Ballers!
“There’s not a shortcut to any place worth going.” – Kai Sotto