How a SKINNY KID became an NBA Finals Star

from zero d1 offers coming out of high school to 21 points in his nba

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debut with the Celtics this is the incredible story of Derek White Derek has always been too small his entire life this photo is of Derek when he was a student As a freshman in high school he weighed a hundred pounds, that's the typical weight of a five-foot-tall man. He joined the basketball team because the school was new and they didn't have anyone else to play with. True, I'm sorry, but in his senior year, Derek had a growth spurt. He stood six feet tall and led his team in scoring 20 points per game.

The problem is that no one wanted it and I mean no one. His father even scoured every college roster in the country looking for schools that had a guard who was about to graduate. and the only team that responded was a coach at a cooking school, seriously, they graduated more famous chefs than basketball players. However, his first big break was when that cooking coach got a legit d2 job in Colorado Springs, not a scholarship, but Derek got a roster spot after the Spurs drafted him five years later, I got the chance to ask Derek why everyone doubted him.

How does a guy who is a first-round pick not have D1 offers coming out of high school? How does that happen? many schools turned away from me and told me he was too small. A lot of d2 schools told me the same thing so it was definitely tough at the time but when I finally got bigger I

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ted making more noise yeah and he actually grew to six foot four when he combined that size with his ability teams

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ted Let's note that Derek was transferred to D1 Colorado and made so much noise that this dunk was the best plays on Espn and in one season he averaged 18 points, four sisters and four rebounds. names he made first team all conference with lonzo ball lori markenin markelle fultz kyle kuzma derek was ready for the nba but first i know that a lot of people, including me, can get stressed about saving and investing my money, i have heard a lot of the People talk about investing in cryptocurrencies.

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Many thanks to stoic for sponsoring. In today's video, he was projected to be a second-round pick in most mock drafts, so why not go to New York and hear his name called by the NBA commissioner? What a surprising ending it would be to his journey as a loser, but instead he stayed home for all the people. whoever helped him get there also got to celebrate the spurs making derek a first round pick at 29th overall greg popovich called him up and the whole party got to see derek talk to his new nba hall of fame coach , so the surreal kid couldn't even shoot until his senior year in high school, the celtics traded him five years later, but there's a very good reason we didn't hear much about derrick white before that, 18 days After he was drafted, Tim Duncan announced his retirement, but it's not a big deal, he still had an elite roster. from the bench he spent most of the year in the g league and the following season the spurs imploded kawhi had problems with the organization and demanded a trade he was sent to toronto for demar derozan jaka purdle and choose tony parker left the team for charlotte manu ginobili se retired what's going on derek had a lot more playing time as he has 67 games in year two playing 26 minutes a night scored 36 against the nuggets in a playoff game now they lost that series and still haven't returned to the postseason and yes Do you know anything about the spurs unless they are like in the

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, no I didn't hear anything about them in the media.

Dejante Murray also showed up in their backcourt, so Derek came back to the bench and basically played for four and a half years out of the spotlight, so how did that guy become the big one? trade of the nba season well the celtics needed a playmaker they relied so much on jason tatum and jaylen brown that people said they should separate them despite having reached three conference finals instead they separated the front office brad stevens went from coach to general manager and they I hired Derek's old assistant coach, ime udoka fans wanted to trade them for like you know Deer and Fox or CJ McCollum but they got Derek White how come the missing piece ?

I mean, yeah, he's an improvement over Dennis Schroeder, but he can't even shoot. He was 32 for 3 in San Antonio and got even worse in Boston, but even when his shot wasn't falling, Derrick impacts the game in the playoffs, only Al Horford and Jason Tatum have a bigger plus-minus. He's been as good on defense as this. block and steal against steph in the second game, his play has been key filling in for marcus smart when he was injured and playing almost 48 seconds in his dominant game in the fourth quarter, but he hasn't been very good throughout the playoffs, something It happened to change.

All his wife gave birth to their first child during the Eastern Finals before that, Derek scored seven points per game, 24 from three since then, 13 per game, 44 from deep with elite defense and I'm not saying that becoming a father is what changed everything. fred van vliet in 2019 or am baskets in 2022. the difference is getting used to your surroundings when he got there he said it took him a while to get to know the plays it was a little strange they would call a play and i would be looking around like where was he I'm supposed to be, but his teammates just told him to be himself, they didn't care that his shot was inconsistent, they knew everything else he brought, the Celtics are built on defense, they already have two stars on offense, Derek. maximizes all of that so really he was the trade that brought it all together, he was the missing piece, getting someone like Dear and Fox would have taken away his identity even though he is a top player, Derek fits everything that they want to do and now four months. after the trade, he's finally settling in, so now I'm going to play the full interview I did with Derek White.

Honestly, one clip was the only one that fit organically into today's video, everything else I felt like he was trying to get me to like. I clumsily put it in, but I just want you to watch it because it's really cool to hear his story from his own perspective. Was your dream always to reach the NBA or was it simply to maximize your potential? Yes, I mean grow. I watched the NBA and you want to be on that stage, but when I got to college I just wanted to maximize my years there and do everything I could to help the team win there.

Have you ever thought about doing something else? I mean all that. At the time they doubted you, did you ever think straight? Maybe I should leave this. Yeah, I mean, I thought about maybe just going to school at Cu, maybe just going to CSU and learning some business or whatever I chose, so you know, I thought. about it, but I always knew I wanted to play Derek White. I want to be a nutritionist without those people that were in the room and all the coaches that I had from childhood to high school, the d2 coach, coach Boyle, everything, having them all. in the same room and I was very grateful that everyone could come and my whole family was there too.

It was great, so the pop coach called you and now that we've all seen the video, they asked you how emotional it was, right? he told you pop in that conversation well I was just saying that he decided to work with me uh he just watches my tapes and he's ready for me to come out here and he wanted to hear a little bit about my story did you ever think? about going to new york you wanted to know I thought about it but just spending time with the family and sharing that moment with all of them and I thought it would be better and then I read a quote where you said never give up if you can play basketball it will find you what did you mean by that basketball is all over the world? um, the players come from different backgrounds, different cities, so if you can play and you can show that you can play basketball it will find you when you play wherever you want to play it and for you it is in the spurs congratulations thank you