Canadian guard Kevin Pangos fulfills NBA dream of a lifetime with Cavaliers

There are plenty of firsts as an NBA rookie, even for a professional veteran who has played at the highest level of European basketball.

There’s your first game, first win, first bucket. The first time around, seeing various athletic wonders descend from the sky to complete pieces that only a handful of humans can think of doing.

And for Kevin Pangos, even more special: He and his wife Katey became parents to their first son last week, with baby Deklan joining his two-year-old sister Olivia in the household.

And as if that weren’t enough, the Cleveland Cavaliers guard from Holland Landing, just north of Toronto, will speak Friday night at Scotiabank Arena as an NBA player for the first time, putting an exclamation mark on a dream. that has been decades in the making, one that for a while seemed out of reach. You can watch the game on Sportsnet One tonight, starting at 7:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 a.m. PT.

“When the calendar came out, all of my family and friends texted me and said, ‘November you’re here,’ so it was brought to my attention very early on,” Pangos said of the comment. from his first game against the Raptors when he was reached by phone. in Cleveland this week.

“I haven’t been back to Toronto often with everything that’s been going on, but it’s definitely nice to come home and play in the – I mean the ‘Air Canada Center’, but it’s not. no longer the case.

“I’m probably going to think back to when I watched the Raptors as a kid. We probably went to five to ten games there. I watched Kobe once, LeBron, Nash, so it’ll be cool to walk into this arena with an NBA jersey for sure.

No one – Pangos included – thought it would take until he was 28.

Growing up, the 6-foot-2 goalie was at the forefront of the wave of Canadian basketball talent that has swept through the NBA for the past decade.

As a teenager, in 2010 he was the leading scorer and playmaker for the Canadian National Under-16 Team which won a bronze medal at the World Championships in Hamburg, Germany. The roster included Anthony Bennett and Andrew Wiggins, who won first place in the NBA Draft, in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Pangos made his senior squad debut the same summer – at 16, the youngest to do so.

He was heavily recruited, even staying home to finish high school at Dr. John M. Denison Secondary – barely a basketball powerhouse. Pangos chose Gonzaga and immediately caused a stir, dropping 33 points and an academic record of nine hat-tricks in his second game as a rookie, setting the tone for one of the most accomplished NCAA careers a Canadian has ever had. never had, leading the Zags to four in a row NCAA Tournaments and Senior Conference Player of the Year.

But after all of that, the NBA never came to call. He didn’t hear his name on draft night in 2015, and even though friends and former teammates apparently showed up in the league by dozens, he must have realized the reality that he wasn’t going to be one. . of them, at least for the time being.

“At first it was difficult,” he says. “I think everyone looks at his situation and thinks he deserves [to be in the NBA], but when you step back and look at it … it’s an extremely small number of guys [that make it], and there are thousands of guys every year who want to break through. And everyone should believe he can do it, but the truth is, there just aren’t enough seats.

“It took me a while to figure this out and not play the game of ‘Why am I not here and why are other guys here?’ and instead of thinking, “What do I have to do to make it happen?” And when I did that, everything changed for me … I realized that if I was supposed to be in the NBA, I would have been there and I wasn’t, so I had to change my habits, my routines. , my state of mind, everything.

But the toughest times came in the 2019-20 season after Pangos’ best year in Europe at that time. He played for Canada at the World Championships in China and a persistent foot problem – plantar fasciitis – that had bothered him for much of the previous season became a major issue. He ended up missing all but three games while playing for FC Barcelona in 2019-2020. Not only were his NBA dreams hanging, but his career too.

But Pangos sees those seasons as a stepping stone – part of the reason he’s been able to make the jump to the NBA now, rather than a factor it’s taking so long.

He couldn’t run or jump because of his injury. So he redoubled his mental training, incorporating meditation and breathing exercises and working closely with a sports psychologist. Given the chronic nature of his injury, he changed his training habits, diving into Pilates and other disciplines to help him strengthen and heal.

“All of these struggles that I’ve had, the ups and downs you could tell, has helped me become a better player and a better person, in general,” he said. “… I grew up through it.”

It was evident on the floor. Pangos had a superb campaign in 2020-21 playing for BC Zenit St. Petersburg. Injury-free for the first time in two seasons, Pangos averaged 13.5 points and 6.7 assists per game while playing 29 minutes per game in the EuroLeague competition, the second best league in the world. He shot 52.2 percent from the floor and 39 percent from three, and was named EuroLeague First Team All-Star, a first for a Canadian player.

It was time to focus on the NBA. He reflected on the conversations he had had over the years with national team veteran Carl English who, like Pangos, was not drafted from college and played in Europe. English told Pangos he never found the right time or opportunity to give the NBA another chance, and in retirement it remains a regret.

“We had meaningful conversations… if anyone could relate to what I was going through, it’s Carl,” Pangos said. ‘”

But for all of his success abroad, coming to the NBA was a leap of faith. While Europe’s top teams were poised to make big offers with hefty guarantees to play a leading role, coming to the NBA meant taking a pay cut and sacrificing job security, all without any insurance on the job. game time.

Although several NBA teams made inquiries, it was the Cavs who made an offer: a year at $ 1.67 million with a team option for a second year at $ 1.75 million. By comparison, players of Pangos’ stature in Europe enjoy multi-year deals for $ 2 million (US), but net of taxes and living expenses, reflecting a true value approaching $ 4 million per season in NBA terms.

To complicate matters, the Cavaliers have two of the league’s most promising young guards at Colin Sexton and Darius Garland, each of whom can switch between the two roles in the backcourt. In August, they traded to veteran point guard Ricky Rubio to be their main replacement.

But Pangos scans the improving Cavs – who added Rookie of the Year candidate Evan Mobley with the third draft pick last summer – and feels like he’s in the right place.

“I think it’s a great core, a great organization, there’s a great atmosphere and for me that’s very important,” he said. “For me, everything is going in the right direction here … I love it.”

Still, the path to breaking the rotation of a 28-year-old rookie with a short-term contract is steep and will require patience. So far, Pangos has only appeared in three of the six games he was dressed for (he was absent from the squad for three games to witness his son’s birth) and has only played eight minutes in the total.

But Pangos does not let himself be discouraged.

“Honestly it’s brand new to me, I’ve never dealt with anything like this in my career before,” he said. “[But] it is not something that shocks me.

“This is what I knew I was getting myself into, so it’s not like I’m defeated or anything like that, I was excited for this challenge. So I’m going to take it day by day and do whatever I can to bring value to this team. “

In the meantime, there is the satisfaction of a dream finally fulfilled.

“Every day for six years – I am not lying – I was checking the [NBA] box scores to see how the guys were doing, see how the teams were doing and think, “How am I going to get there? What will be my path? For six years in a row, that’s all I could think of. Everything I tried to do was with that goal in mind.

Tonight, at home and in front of family and friends, the Pangos can speak at Scotiabank Arena for the first time as an NBA player with a goal accomplished, and arguably more on the horizon.