Ex-CSU star wants NBA berth
Gian Clavell works out with the Nuggets in search of his professional dream.
Gian Clavell did not care to hear Monday about the growing number of lucrative opportunities to play professional basketball overseas.
“No,” the former Colorado State guard said after a predraft workout with the Nuggets at the Pepsi Center. “The dream is the NBA. Just because I get a little bit of a bump in the road, it doesn’t mean I’m going to stop and say, ‘I’m going to go overseas.’ No, man. If I have to go to the D-League, then I’ll go to the D-League. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make an NBA team.”
Clavell rarely failed to produce good sound bites during three seasons at CSU. The truth is, his production typically matched his passion. While carrying a Rams team with seven players to within one game of the NCAA Tournament last season, Clavell averaged 20.4 points and 6.3 rebounds per game and was named the Mountain West player of the year.
“He’s a competitor,” Colorado wing George King, who participated in Monday’s workout but will return to CU, said of Clavell. “He’s a great shooter, and he’s very vocal.”
Clavell, a 6-foot-4, 185-pound guard, was the heart and soul of a Rams team that was defined by its irreverence toward the odds. CSU, its roster gutted by the academic suspensions of three players, won 10 of 11 games down the stretch of the regular season, then marched to the title game of the conference tournament before finally running out of gas on the doorstep
of an improbable NCAA Tournament berth. Clavell, the 23-year-old from Puerto Rico, led the march, a brash personification of his tough-nosed coach, Larry Eustachy.
Clavell reflects often on his senior season, one he believes tells prospective NBA employers everything they need to know about what he would provide for a franchise.
“Never give up, no matter what situation you’re in,” Clavell said, citing the biggest takeaway from his final college season. “You can be in a lot of situations, and it doesn’t mean that you stop. That’s life. Life isn’t perfect. You’re going to get bumped, hit, dropped on the floor. You’re going to get knocked down. You have to continue to get up and strive for everything you want to do.”
Clavell faces an uphill path to achieving his NBA goal. He’s not projected to be selected in the upcoming draft, meaning his best chance of making an impression would come during the summer league. Still, the world’s best league has expanded its admission with the recent addition of the two-way contract that gives teams two spots beyond their 15-man roster to use for player development. Players on twoway contracts can be shuf- fled between the D-League and NBA teams, with the majority of time spent in the former.
Players on two-way contracts are paid $75,000 with the opportunity to increase that wage to about $250,000, depending on the amount of time they spend in the NBA. The new contract was added to the last collective bargaining agreement as a way to give incentive to players to develop their games stateside. The move has created more chances for fringe players such as Clavell, and he insists a chance is all he needs.
“I have confidence in myself,” he said. “I’m trying to show what kind of leader I am.”