2024 NBA playoffs tracker<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/aside>\nStill, Reath had to prove himself further.<\/p>\n
He was one of Portland’s final cuts before the start of the regular season, then signed a two-way deal two days later. His NBA journey would begin in the G League.<\/p>\n
Reath’s G-League career lasted just one game.<\/p>\n
The Rip City Remix made their debut Nov. 10 against the South Bay Lakers. With Portland in town to face the Los Angeles Lakers two nights later, Reath put on a show, finishing with 37 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks while shooting 15-of-20 overall and 5-of-6 from 3-point range.<\/p>\n
“After the game, everybody’s joking as we’re walking out the gym like, ‘Well, Wop just played himself out of the G-League’,” Thybulle recalled.<\/p>\n
Two days later, Reath made his NBA debut against the Los Angeles Lakers.<\/p>\n
And it was everything Reath imagined it would be.<\/p>\n
“I told Matisse as soon as I walked on the court to do my warmup, the lights were a little bit brighter at Crypto.com Arena,” Reath said. “It felt like this is how I visualized it, the warmup, my pre-game warmup, everything was the way I visualized it. And I was just telling him, yeah, ‘Man, dreams do come true.’<\/p>\n
In 13 minutes, Reath had 11 points and was 3-of-8 from 3-point range.<\/p>\n
As a two-way player, Reath was eligible to bounce back and forth between the Blazers and the Remix, but he never went back to the G-League.<\/p>\n
After making his NBA debut, he played in Portland’s next 15 games, starting four of them, averaging 8.2 points and 2.8 rebounds.<\/p>\n
Soon, though, another roadblock appeared.<\/p>\n
Two-way players are only eligible to be on the active NBA roster for 50 games in a season. Though he’d been inactive for the first eight games of the season, Portland’s final game before the All-Star break represented Reath’s 40th game. Barring a change, he’d only be able to play in 10 of Portland’s remaining 28 games.<\/p>\n
But the Blazers saw the value in an undrafted player who ranks eighth among all rookies in 3-point field goals and ninth in win shares according to Basketball Reference.<\/p>\n
So after a two-decade journey that took him from South Sudan to Kenya to Australia to Texas to Louisiana to Serbia to China to Lebanon back to Australia then finally to Portland, on Feb. 16 Reath inked a three-year, $6.2 million contract, making him a full-fledged NBA player.<\/p>\n
His journey meant the world to him and to his family back in Australia, most of whom have never seen him play an NBA game in person. His family watches the replays the following day because of the time difference.<\/p>\n
Lately, he keeps a small reminder of home with him at all times. He wears the initials “A.R.” on his wrist tape for a family friend, Alier Riak, who was killed in Australia in 2022. Reath likened him to a little brother.<\/p>\n
So when Reath steps on the court, now with that full contract in hand, it gives him a reassurance that everything — and every place — he went through was worth it.<\/p>\n
“I felt a sense of gratitude,” Reath said. “Reflecting on my journey, I feel like every experience played a major role to put me in the position I am today.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Inside Portland rookie Duop Reath’s unlikely journey to the NBA\u060c Andrew Lopez, ESPNMar 25, 2024, 12:00 PM INSIDE THE VISITOR’S locker room at the Frost Bank Center in San Antonio, the Portland Trail Blazers are getting their belongings together, heading home after an exhausting four-game road trip in late January. As players head out to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32918,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[12321,6702,162,10102,12322,1738],"class_list":["post-32917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","tag-duop","tag-journey","tag-nba","tag-portland","tag-reaths","tag-rookie"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32919,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32917\/revisions\/32919"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}