By Joe Vardon / The Athletic
Seated in a plastic chair near midcourt in a hot, old gym some 600 miles south of the U.S. border, the youngest American to ever play professional basketball really wanted to talk about LeBron James.
Dink Pate, now 18, is playing for the NBA G League’s Mexico City Capitanes this season after his debut last year for the now-defunct G League Ignite at 17 years, 1 month and 7 days. He had just finished his morning practice with the Capitanes at the Mexican Olympic headquarters on the city’s west side, behind brick walls and heavy gates that cordon off the property from the high-volume traffic that dominates the city landscape most of the time.
Two years ago, Pate was a junior at Pinkston High School on the west side of another city — Dallas. How he ended up in Mexico City, falling in love with tacos and admiring the way 22 million people manage city life there, is a story in itself. But Pate sees it as part of a journey that began 10 years ago, when he was an 8-year-old deciding who his favorite player was.
“When I was 8, I told myself straight out my favorite player was LeBron,” Pate said, “and I said if he didn’t go to college, why couldn’t I do it?”
Pate, a 6-foot-7 guard, said that when he first charted his life’s path, he wasn’t even good at basketball. In fact, he had little interest in it. He wanted to be a rapper.
“I didn’t know how to dribble, couldn’t shoot. Too skinny, too weak. I didn’t know how to do jumping jacks,” Pate said. “I’m a real big Tupac fan, a real big fan of ’90s and ’80s music. I used to walk around the house with my fake chain on, with my paper in my hand.”
Pate said he played football at 8, and the program he joined required its athletes to also play basketball. His older brother played basketball in high school, and Pate became enamored with Dallas-area star Marcus Garrett, a 6-foot-5 guard who would play at Kansas and then for the Miami Heat. Garrett currently is in the G League with the Greensboro Swarm.
From the beginning, though, Pate said James was his man.
The simple fact that Pate is sitting in the practice gear of a G League team as a teenager, with draft experts projecting him to be selected in the middle of the first round of what many believe to be an above-average draft, implies that he followed the life plan he set for himself. One that was so heavily influenced by the NBA’s all-time leading scorer.
“I looked up his story, and I just kept searching ‘LeBron and college’ — nothing ever popped up,” Pate said. “I didn’t even know that was possible. I was just 8 years old, like, I was just capping. I was just chatting. I didn’t even mean it for real. I was just saying if LeBron went to the league out of high school, I’m doing it too.”
The catch now is that players no longer can enter the NBA draft directly out of high school. They either have to go to college for one year, find a pro league overseas or in the United States, or otherwise wait until they’re 19 to declare for the draft.
The first college offer Pate received came from Southern Methodist, minutes away from his home, when he was a freshman. Pate graduated early, after a junior season at Pinkston averaging 20.3 points per game, and had college offers from the likes of Alabama and Arkansas. He said he would have picked Alabama because of his relationship with Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats, but “college was never my dream.”
G League Ignite, founded in 2020 as a developmental team for prospects, thought enough of Pate’s chances to award him a two-year contract at age 17. But his historic rookie season was not without its challenges.
Pate was among the least efficient players in the G League last season, making just 34.7% of his shots and 21.4% of his 3s while committing 2.5 turnovers per game. The Ignite weren’t very good, either, finishing with a 2-32 record. The NBA shut down the Ignite for good after last season.
“We found out 45 minutes before y’all did,” he said. “I just knew something was going to happen. I didn’t know if it was a family problem or what? But when he told me, you know, Ignite is no longer going to be here, I didn’t even think about me because I’m the only one on a two-year contract. I’m thinking about my teammates.”
Because of the Ignite’s closure, Pate tried unsuccessfully to get a waiver allowing him to enter the NBA draft early. He was allowed to sign with any G League team for the second year of his contract and came away from his experience as a minor league free agent more aware of the business side of basketball than most aspiring NBA players his age.
The Capitanes, like the Ignite, are not affiliated with any NBA team. Players don’t shuttle to and from the big-league club throughout the course of the season. Their goals are to develop all the players they have, as well as to grow basketball in Mexico and Latin America in part by trying to keep a few players on the roster from countries south of the United States.
“I bring my value and what I bring to a team and to a city in a culture where my personality fits,” Pate said.
Pate now finds himself on a team with NBA champion Juan Toscano-Anderson, who was born in Oakland, California, but is of Mexican descent and is in his second season with the Capitanes. Pate calls Toscano-Anderson “my vet” and appreciates the advice the former Golden State Warrior passes down.
As for his own draft prospects, Pate said he wants “to be a lottery pick,” offering that it has been his longtime goal (since, you guessed it, “8 years old”).
“Some people don’t even get to be in the room, or even get to be in New York at Barclays Center, period,’” he said. “So, for me to think about that and feel like I know I need to go No. 1 — I feel like I can go No. 1, but, you know, I’m not even harping on that.”
Pate admitted that he needs to fix his jumper and is at the Mexico Olympic facility day and night, even after his teammates have gone home from practice, getting up extra shots. He added that he is focused this season on winning with the Capitanes.
He knows that the South Bay Lakers have a game in Mexico City this season, and though Bronny James hasn’t been traveling with the team, there’s still a chance he might. And if Bronny is there, there’s always a chance that LeBron James would be there, too.
“I’m pretty sure he gets it all the time,” Pate said, “but he doesn’t know what impact he has on me.”
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