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From Alaska to Las Vegas to the G-League, NBA’s next for Nix

The 14-year-old boy who moved from Anchorage, Alaska, to Las Vegas in pursuit of his basketball dreams is all grown up now. All of 19 years old, 6 feet 5 inches and 227 pounds. Primed to play professional basketball.

“Sometimes I just look back, like how far I came,” Daishen Nix said Wednesday on the eve of the NBA draft. “All the games I’ve played, all the tournaments I’ve been through and the experience I have, it’s been really crazy.”

Come Thursday night, it’s going to get even crazier.

Nix will find out exactly where he’ll continue a basketball career that began in Alaska and blossomed at Trinity International School at the Bill and Lillie Heinrich YMCA. He spent last season playing for G League Ignite, competing against future and former NBA players.

All in preparation for this week.

His high school coach and mentor, Greg Lockridge, told Nix when they met that he’d one day become a McDonald’s All-American and NBA player.

“It’s been a tremendous ride,” Lockridge said of the draft. “(I’m going to) try not to cry too much, but when you know his journey, you can’t help but be emotional.”

Becoming a pro

Nix moved with his family to Las Vegas before high school as a relative unknown with the hope of becoming a better basketball player. He flourished in four years under Lockridge, fulfilling his prophecy last year by garnering scholarship offers from the best college programs in the country and becoming a McDonald’s All-American.

He was prepared to play for UCLA, having signed a national letter of intent before his senior season at Trinity. But the G League came calling in the spring. So he relocated to the Bay Area to train with Ignite amid the doldrums of the coronavirus pandemic.

“I weighed the options. The pros and cons. … There was more opportunity going to the G League,” Nix said, explaining that he doesn’t regret bypassing the Bruins. “The difference was NBA experience. The people I was playing with. The coaches. That’s really just what changed my mind.”

With little to do, Nix trained and went home. Trained and went home, until the G League in February finally began play in a bubble setting in Orlando.

In 15 games, he averaged 8.8 points, 5.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists while shooting 38.4 percent from the floor and 17.6 percent from 3-point range as he worked to adjust to the pace of professional play.

He showcased his size, strength and uncanny court vision as a passer while running the point. But he struggled shooting from the perimeter and wasn’t as explosive as usual while playing at 245 pounds.

“There were some times in the bubble where I really didn’t trust in my jump shot,” he said. “I really didn’t shoot the ball like I should have.”

Nix said NBA teams told him as much, and he returned to Las Vegas committed to refining his jumper and chiseling his physique. In preparing for the draft, Nix trained three times per day, six days per week — dedicating two workouts to skill development and another to physical fitness.

He altered his diet and promptly shed 20 pounds. “A lot more vegetables,” he says, “and just keeping a steady meal plan.” He also attempted thousands and thousands of jumpers, simulating NBA actions under the tutelage of renowned player development coach Joe Abunassar and his staff at Impact Basketball.

“He started to understand it’s a lifestyle,” Abunassar said. “His whole day was training, and then whatever other time he had, he used that. It’s a big shift in his mentality and his approach to being a pro. … It consumed his life. It wasn’t something he did on the side. It became ‘This is what I do.’”

Abunassar also said Nix is “10 times” more confident as shooter now than he was in say, April, when he started training at Impact. He’s toured the country in the last month working out for NBA teams — Detroit, Houston, Atlanta, New Orleans, Chicago, Dallas, Boston, Golden State and Toronto, to name a few.

He said he felt like he shot the ball better and better with each and every workout.

Most mock draft peg Nix as a second-round pick, but he says he doesn’t pay much attention to those. “That’s someone else’s opinion,” he says. “I know the (teams) I’ve worked out for. I know how they feel about me.”

“At some point in time, they’re going to say he was the steal of the draft class,” Lockridge said. “It’s a process. It takes time.”

Contact reporter Sam Gordon at sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon on Twitter.

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