By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
After failing to pursue his NBA dream, Filipino basketball sensation Kai Sotto will be returning to a familiar territory in Australia.
The seven-foot-two center will reunite with his former teammates at the Adelaide 36ers squad and will run it back once again in the Australian National Basketball League.
It was Adelaide head coach CJ Bruton who confirmed the development after an interview with the Aussie Hoopla Podcast.
“Right now, it’s focusing on, ‘How do you help the 36ers and get yourself back in a spot that now everyone’s looking at you, you are ready now?’” Bruton said.
Before making his decision of flying back to Australia and play his second season in the NBL, Sotto stayed in the United States for months and did several workouts with several NBA teams but unfortunately, his name wasn’t called during the recently concluded NBA Rookie Draft.
Sotto also wasn’t able to grace the 2022 NBA Summer League that featured the top picks in the draft including promising young players that already secured their commitment to the NBA D League.
Talks of him returning to the Philippines and reinforcing the Gilas Pilipinas men’s national basketball team also circulated but the plan wasn’t able to push through.
“Everyone has thoughts and dreams and Kai’s dream is to get to the NBA. I thought he was two years away from doing that. Clearly, he put his name in and he couldn’t get it out,” added Bruton.
With Sotto’s addition to the current Adelaide roster, the Filipino hooper is expected to log in more minutes after his first season was plagued with a nagging knee injury that kept him out in the first quarter of the season.
After receiving a go signal to play while nursing his injury, Sotto was able to play but was under minutes restriction.
Despite playing in limited minutes, Sotto was successful in creating an impact for the 36ers and put up memorable performances including his last two games where he averaged a near double-double.
The Australian NBL will kick off its 2022-2023 season on October 1, 2022 and will still follow the same format of 140 games under 18 rounds of elimination phases.
