Podz particulars ‘powerful’ choice selecting basketball over baseball initially appeared on NBC Sports activities Bay Space
Brandin Podziemski turned an prompt contributor throughout his debut season with the Warriors, however what if the NBA All-Rookie First-Staff guard continued to pursue a unique sport as an alternative of chasing his basketball desires?
Throughout a latest interview on “The Dinner Desk” podcast, Podziemski revealed that regardless of his dad’s want to have him play baseball, he fell in love with basketball in eighth grade and determined that was the trail he needed to take going ahead — which the 21-year-old shared led to a troublesome dialog with one among his mother and father.
“Oh, yeah. Tremendous onerous,” Podziemski mentioned. “My mother, she’s sort of glide. So no matter I wish to do, she’s like, ‘Yeah, that is wonderful.’ However my dad was so huge on me making it in baseball, taking part in. It is one thing that he could not make it in, so he needed me to make it in.
“It was a tough dialog, I bear in mind we have been driving again from a event in Nashville, and I simply informed him within the automotive, ‘I do not assume I wish to play baseball anymore. I believe basketball is one thing I like to do now, and that is simply the place I wish to cease.”
“I bear in mind him virtually crying about it as a result of he was like, ‘There isn’t any approach, you are so proficient, you are so gifted, you are meant to play baseball.’ I similar to stood true to it, I used to be like, ‘When you let me play, I’ll make it in basketball.’ 5, six years later bought drafted, so simply stayed true to what I informed him.”
Podziemski then was requested if his dad had any particular message for him after being chosen No. 19 general within the 2023 NBA Draft.
“I do not assume it was something he mentioned, it was simply sort of tears of pleasure,” Podziemski mentioned. “I believe amongst my entire household, simply because no person in my household has ever performed sports activities at even a university degree, most was highschool. So for me to be somebody who made it out with our household, and having the ability to have fun them, having all of them there with me in Brooklyn was actually enjoyable.”
Podziemski rapidly has change into a revered NBA participant, reportedly being a extremely wanted commerce chip in rumored offers for different All-Stars.
Whether or not Golden State decides to maintain Podziemski in its long-term plans or embody him because the centerpiece in a commerce for a participant like Utah Jazz ahead Lauri Markkanen, it is protected to say the Warriors benefited tremendously from his life-altering choice to forego baseball in favor of basketball.
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