So, too, was the chance to show off his skills in front of college coaches and pro scouts who could further his future in hoops.Whatever doubts O-Max might’ve had about moving to a new country yet again, Ben was able to assuage by sharing his experience with his friend.“He asked me a lot [about the NBA Academy] because he wanted to come also, and I wanted him to come here,” Ben says. “They're completely different personalities, but they get along really well.”That was the case off the court as well. The Montreal Expos never won the World Series, but were among the best teams in Major League Baseball during two seasons (1981 and 1994) disrupted by players’ strikes. “It wasn't like your prep school that ends in May and kids are home May, June, July and August. Oklahoma City Thunder re-sign Luguentz Dort ahead of Orlando restart UPI 01:38. He played college basketball for the Arizona State Sun Devils. His parents are of Haitian descent, and Dort speaks both French and Creole. “I was really surprised because [Nelson] told me to come.”As difficult as that shortfall was for Ben to swallow, it was far from the most devastating blow of his year. Dort was born in 1999 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. In fact, O-Max quite literally stood out, a spindly beanstalk-of-an-adolescent rising above the field.“He was like a little deer when he started playing,” Joey says.
(NBA Academy/Nicole Sweet)In the fall of 2018, Lu, Ben and O-Max proceeded on different paths—from Montreal, and from each other.After emerging as a high school hoops star in Florida and Ontario, Lu headed west for his freshman year at Arizona State. College/International Summary. The NCAA allows a player to explore his NBA options and still return to school if he withdraws by May 29 and adheres to a strict set of guidelines that were altered entering the 2018-19 season. He and the Blue had lost to the Iowa Wolves in Des Moines earlier in the week, and would lose again to the Westchester Knicks in Las Vegas on Sunday before heading back to the Sooner State.But for a few minutes, they weren’t basketball players trying to impress NBA personnel and pave their paths to the league. During those dark times, the basketball court became his refuge. He led the 23-win Sun Devils in scoring, at 16.1 points per game, and carried his squad to the 2019 NCAA tournament.In June 2019, Ben and O-Max reunited in Medellin, Colombia. The opportunity to work on his game under the tutelage of NBA-trained coaches, in an NBA-sanctioned program, was enticing enough.
Montreal native Luguentz Dort has plenty of qualities that should land him in the NBA. He made the U-13 with ease.“Ben played basketball with like a chip on his shoulder,” Joey recalls, “like he had something to prove in every game.”Ben starred for the Parc Ex Knights in the MBL. Ben and O-Max performed well enough to earn All-Star selections on the boys’ side.While the NBA already knew plenty about Ben, O-Max’s performance earned him an offer of his own from the NBA Academy in Mexico City. He shot 40.5 percent from the field and 70 percent from the line but hit for just 30.7 percent from long distance.The Sun Devils looked to be in good shape for the coming season, graduating just two seniors (Zylan Cheatham and De'Quon Lake) from a team that advanced to the postseason in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 1981. Thunder guard Luguentz Dort left in the first quarter of Wednesday's game after hurting his right knee, and coach Billy Donovan said he didn't know the full extent of the injury. TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) — Luguentz Dort is a freshman in name and age only. Dort was named the 2018-19 Pac-12 Rookie of the Year after he collected the sixth most points in the conference (547) and finished eighth in the league in points per game (16.1) for Arizona State.

In his first year with Arizona State, he earned second-… He went undrafted and then signed a contract with Oklahoma City. Born: April 19, 1999 in Montreal, Canada ca. Here, they’re both chosen as All-Stars at BWB Global. The Montreal, Quebec, Canada native was named to the 2018-19 All-Pac-12 Second Team as well as the 18-19 Pac-12 All-Defensive Team. — Erik Horne (@ErikkHorne) August 13, 2020. In January, Ben verbally committed to the University of Arizona, where he will soon send his own NLI.And who hit him up on FaceTime that day, despite having played for the Wildcats’ in-state rival? He was a second-team Pac-12 selection, the only freshman out of 15 players named, and was one of five athletes named to the All-Defensive first team.He had eight games of 20 points or more with a season-best of 33 coming in nonconference play against Utah State in a two-game event in Las Vegas.Early in the season, Dort was projected as a high first-round draft selection, possibly even making the lottery. Our historical fantasy ratings are standard scores calculated using 8-Category settings with 12 teams and 13 players per team. LAS VEGAS -- The G League Winter Showcase isn’t quite the jam-packed schmoozefest that the NBA Las Vegas Summer League has become. “I keep telling him how we have great opportunities to play in front of coaches and how the Academy part is going well also.”So, in the fall of 2019, O-Max reclassified from the class of 2021 to the class of 2020, packed up some of his belongings and headed down to Mexico City to continue his basketball journey by Ben’s side.“I already had somebody I knew there that could help me in the transition and also somebody that could challenge me, especially in practice,” O-Max says. (NBA Academy/Nicole Sweet)But he wasn’t the only standout. Dort (knee) will not play in Friday's game against the Clippers, In the fall, they will head to opposite ends of the U.S. to begin their collegiate careers.This past November, O-Max signed his National Letter of Intent (NLI) to play at Clemson University. The years of tough love he’d endured with Brookwood Elite were beginning to pay off.“We coach our kids very hard, and we coached him the hardest,” Joey says of Lu. Luguentz Dort of the Thunder is the latest Montreal native to reach the NBA, but with French Canada's growing talent pool, he won't be the last. You're just too hard on him.’ Because if we can be hard on him, we can be hard on anybody.”That included O-Max, who grew into a sturdier, more coordinated 6’8” wing with perimeter skills. When Ben and O-Max weren’t busy playing basketball, they’d talk hoops, crack jokes, watch movies together, listen to rap and Haitian The game, though, formed the foundation of their bond.