Sochan eager to play for Poland
Earlier this week, three basketball fans from Poland boarded a long-haul flight, crossed an ocean and came to San Antonio to watch the Spurs play.
As far as sports gambling goes in 2023, this was a risky proposition.
With the Spurs playing out the string on one of the worst seasons in their history, and Polish darling Jeremy Sochan battling nagging bumps and bruises, there was a chance those fans’ return on investment could have gone belly up.
Sochan made sure his countrymen got their money’s worth.
“They traveled across seas, which is crazy,” Sochan said Tuesday after his late addition to the lineup helped spearhead a rousing 132-114 victory over Orlando. “I hope they had fun watching not only me, but my team.”
The three fans in the lower bowl of the AT&T Center sporting the red jerseys of the Polish national team left smiling.
Not only did the Spurs turn in one of their more entertaining performances of the season, with 39 assists and a franchise-record 22 3-pointers, Sochan led the way with 29 points and 11 rebounds.
The 19-year-old Sochan hopes to give Polish fans more to cheer about in the near future.
Sochan’s mother, Aneta, was born in Poland, making her son eligible to play for the country’s national team in international competition.
It is an opportunity Sochan says he will not pass up if and when it is offered.
“Whatever chances I get to play for the Polish national team, I’ll be there,” Sochan said.
Sochan participated in Eurobasket qualifiers for the Polish team last year, becoming the youngest player in history to play for that country in FIBA competition.
Sochan has played in junior competition for both Poland and England, where he was raised.
An official delegation from the Polish Basketball Association — led by its director,
Radoslaw Piesiewicz — was in town this week to discuss future opportunities with Sochan.
Poland did not qualify for the 2023 World Cup this summer. Poland has not appeared in an Olympic basketball tournament since the 1980 Games in Moscow.
The Polish delegation is pinning its hopes on Sochan as it eyes the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
“Ever since I was a kid playing with the national team, I think every tournament, every game, every practice was just fun,” Sochan said. “Definitely if I get the opportunity, I will always be there.”
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said the organization will support Sochan if he decides to offer his summers to Poland.
“We’ve always been on the side of having these guys play,” Popovich said. “Tony (Parker) always did.
Manu (Ginobili) always did. It’s hard to tell them you can’t go play for your country.”
Popovich’s strong feelings on national team duty were cemented in 2021, when he led the U.S. team to gold at the Tokyo Olympics.
“I know what it feels like, since I was able to coach for my country,” Popovich said. “So it would be disingenuous to say, ‘You can’t do that.’ ”
With a roster often populated by foreign-born players, the Spurs have become accustomed to sharing players with their national teams over summers.
The only time the Spurs publicly balked at a player opting to play in an international competition came in the summer of 2008.
That year, Ginobili injured his ankle early in the NBA playoffs. Popovich went on record asking Ginobili to reconsider competing in the Beijing Olympics if it had not fully healed.
The Spurs’ fears proved well-founded. Ginobili blew out the ankle again in Beijing, which caused him to miss the first month of the 2008-09 NBA season.
Of Sochan’s Olympic prospects Popovich said, “It’s about health more than anything. Hopefully he’ll be healthy.”
In the meantime, Sochan is looking to put the finishing touches on what has been an eye-opening rookie season with the Spurs.
Selected ninth overall out of Baylor, Sochan came billed as a versatile and pesky defender whose offensive game was viewed as a work in progress.
At 11.1 points per game heading into Wednesday’s contest against Dallas, Sochan is on pace to become the first Spurs rookie to average double figures in that department since Tim Duncan in 1997-98.
“That just shows the work he puts in and the confidence he has,” guard Devin Vassell said. “He never really takes a bad shot. Everything is through the flow of the offense. As long as he keeps doing that and keeps progressing, the sky is the limit for him.”
In his lone season at Baylor, Sochan averaged 9.2 points, never logging more than 17 in a single game.
He has produced six games of at least 20 points as an NBA rookie, including a 30-point outing in an overtime loss to Phoenix in January.
“I just fill roles,” Sochan said. “At Baylor, my role wasn’t to score. It was to be the energy guy, to be able to do everything on the floor. Just be energy really.
“I got an opportunity from the start here, and I’ve been able to showcase what I can do.”
Occasionally, that means attempting something no other player would think to do.
Late in Tuesday’s game against Orlando, Sochan found himself stonewalled near the foul line by the Magic’s Kevon Harris.
Sochan extricated himself from the situation by tossing the ball off the backboard to himself, then completing a layup.
“That just comes with a lot of confidence,” Vassell said. “It’s going to take him a long way.”
To hear Sochan tell it, he had an even more daring plan in mind as he lofted the ball off the glass.
He was originally going to finish the play with a slam.
“I had no legs,” Sochan said. “I ain’t gonna lie.”
Somewhere in the bowl of the AT&T Center, three red-clad Polish fans applauded Sochan’s highlight-reel play anyway.
So too did leaders of the Polish national team, who no doubt hope Sochan soon gives their entire country reason to celebrate.