He is Choi Young-hee's only rookie teammate, and it was the death of his mother that made his basketball dream a reality, and he is Donovan Klingen. The two-time NCAA Collegiate Championship champion center, who was originally one of the favorites in this year's draft, unexpectedly slipped to the 7th pick and was picked up by the Trail Blazers, and the signing was also rated as an A-level operation by the media.
With the Trail Blazers trading all the remaining four picks, Klingen and Choi Yong-hee, who signed with the Trail Blazers with Exhibit 10, became the only two rookies on the team.
And Klingen's ability to truly love basketball and even want to impact the NBA is inseparable from the death of his mother. "I wasn't really a big fan of basketball before, but when she passed away, I realized how much I loved basketball, and basketball gave me a reason to be proud and feel like she was still around," Klingen said.
His mother, Stacey Pollini, a 193-centimeter-tall, center-forward, attended Bristol Central School in his hometown of Connecticut, where she led the school by grabbing 1,032 rebounds and 273 blocks. The University led the University of Maine to three NCAA tournament appearances and was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame for a record 79 blocks in a single season.
This kind of performance was enough to make her dream of the WNBA, but she chose to give up because she has one of the biggest traits: love for family, including her own small family and the hometown where she was born and raised.
After graduating, he resolutely chose to return to his hometown to start a family, and became a grassroots primary school teacher, working hard for 18 years, until he died of cancer spreading after 8 years of fighting breast cancer.
This huge change made Klingen, who originally regarded basketball as an ordinary hobby, suddenly realize that this sport is a bridge between their mother and son, so he secretly vowed to follow in her footsteps in the name of his mother from the 8th grade, inherit her glory, and become the best basketball player.
Klingen High School chose his mother's alma mater, changed the number to his mother's number 32, and agreed with the coach to come to the school at 5:30 every morning for special training, and he was never late. The spirit of diligence and the blessing of the original height gene made him average more than 22 points per game in his freshman year of high school with a height of 2.10 meters. After the epidemic passed, Klingen, a senior in high school, rose to an average of 27.3 points, 17.2 rebounds, and 5.8 blocks per game, and won the state Athlete of the Year.
At the same time, he also adheres to his mother's concept of building his hometown, actively participates in the pruning of park vegetation in the summer, and devotes himself to the snow clearing work of the streets in the winter, he is also known as the "tallest snow shoveler in the country" by his neighbors, especially the snow shoveling often needs to go out to work at two or three o'clock in the morning, preparing for the daytime commute, but this still does not prevent him from showing up at the school gym on time at 5:30 to train.
With an average of 30.3 points, 18.4 rebounds, and 6.2 blocks per game in his senior year, he led the team to win the state championship again after 33 years, and once again chose his hometown of Connecticut among many college offers, helping ConnectnCut win the NCAA National Championship again since 2014, and won two consecutive times.
Now in the NBA through the draft, he is full of photos with his mom in a custom suit, he said: "I know she must be smiling at me, this is what I try to do in my life, I will give my best every day to be the best version of myself!" ”