Being drafted by an NBA team is a nerve-wracking experience. College players from all over the country sit around the television set surrounded by friends and family waiting anxiously to hear their name called.
For Kings center Richaun Holmes, he didn’t get the full experience. It’s not that he didn’t get drafted, the Philadelphia 76ers selected him with the 37th overall pick in the 2015 NBA Draft. It was those darn commercial breaks that did him in.
“I kind of had an idea, they told me my range and my range was kind of late first round to mid-late second round, and so I was just kind of waiting and just anticipating,” Holmes told NBC Sports’ Tom Haberstroh as part of the "Habershow" podcast at NBA All-Star weekend. “And actually, when my name got called, it went on commercial, so we didn’t see it at first.”
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One of Richaun’s older brother’s friends was in the audience and called to celebrate the selection, which is how he found out he was drafted.
“They went back and rewound it and said, ‘this is what happened during our commercial break,’” Holmes said. “I saw my face, I saw my highlights and it kind of became real then.”
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Holmes thought his brother’s friend was joking with him but it didn’t take long for it to be confirmed.
NBA
“They never do that, they never do that,” Holmes said of going to commercial breaks during picks. “But just the excitement and the thrill - I’ll never forget that day.”
The joy of the draft quickly was replaced by the realization that he had been selected to a Sixers team that was in the middle of “The Process.” His team won 10 games during his rookie season, but that is a story for another day.