SILVA PLAYS FOR FAMILY IN AFRICA
Heat rookie Chris Silva, a native of Gabon, Africa, dreams of bringing his family to Miami to watch him play in the NBA.
TORONTO
Running can be symbolic of so many things.
For Heat forward Chris Silva, running is symbolic of his unique journey and hope to one day be reunited with his family.
The undrafted rookie describes himself as more of the long-distance type who is known for his two-mile runs following basketball workouts. Silva prefers to run on a track or any circular path.
That’s where the symbolism comes in.
“It just unblocks my head. All I think about is making it,” Silva said of running. “There’s something about it. I like to do a circle because when I get tired in a circle, I know I can’t stop here. I have to finish to get back to the house.”
Playing under a two-way contract with the Heat, Silva (6-8, 234 pounds) is currently on his own circular path trying to make it back home to his family. He’s averaging 4.2 points and 4.3 rebounds in 18 games in his first NBA season. A native of Gabon, Africa, Silva left his home country in 2012 just days away from turning 16 to come to the United States with a dream of making it to the NBA. He has seen his parents and siblings only once since then, and that was when he returned to Gabon for two weeks to renew his visa as a sophomore at the University of South Carolina. “Two weeks felt like two days, to be honest,” said Silva, 23, of his lone trip back to Africa to visit his mother, father and three brothers. “I don’t think anybody besides my uncle has ever seen me play basketball.”
Silva’s uncle, Miguel, will watch him play again Wednesday when the Heat faces the Celtics at TD Garden. The Heat (14-5) begins a challenging back-to-back set Tuesday against the Raptors at Scotiabank Arena.
Miguel, who is Silva’s legal guardian, lives in Boston and is one of Silva’s only relatives in the United States. The two have been through a lot together.
Miguel stayed up all night to track the four different flights Silva took to first arrive to the United States from Gabon. Silva didn’t speak English and
had never been on an airplane before that long trek, with Miguel worried he would get lost along the way.
Once Silva made it to the United States to attend and play basketball at Roselle Catholic High in New Jersey, there were tough times Miguel had to talk Silva through. Silva was homesick almost immediately.
“He felt lonely. He wanted to see his mom, his dad,” Miguel recalls. “But he couldn’t make it. I remember at some point, the high school told me he had been down and they wanted to send him home to see his family. I said, ‘No, I’m going to talk to him because he just got here.’ I didn’t want him to want to go back right away.”
Now, Miguel sends daily updates to their family in Gabon regarding Silva’s accomplishments.
While attending the
Heat’s Oct. 23 season opener against the Grizzlies at AmericanAirlines Arena, Miguel sent a short video to the family of Heat public address announcer Michael Baiamonte introducing Silva when he entered his first regular-season NBA game.
“I have to update the family pretty much every day,” Miguel said. “They try to watch him play online, but the internet is so messed up over there. Now they have WhatsApp, so I can take a picture or record a video and send it to them.”
The time change also makes it difficult for Silva’s family to watch any of his games. A 7:30 p.m. Heat home game begins at 1:30 a.m. in Gabon.
Silva has grown accustomed to going through life on his own, though. It has been seven years since he arrived in the United States.
“After spending all these years doing it by myself, I kind of got a hang of it,” Silva said. “But it would be nice. I don’t want to say being away from them is difficult, but it would be nice once something is hard or I have a good game to go home and see my mom.
Talk to somebody in the family.”
Coach Erik Spoelstra admitted he knew very little about Silva’s story when the Heat signed him this past offseason.
But when Silva told Spoelstra about his path to the NBA, there were “goosebumps.” Silva is the second player from Gabon to play in the NBA, after Stephane Lasme.
“That must be so scary,” Spoelstra said. “Coming to a new country as a high school student, not knowing the language, not knowing really anything about where you’re going and being dropped off and then having to have the grit and resourcefulness to make it happen without going back, without looking in the rearview mirror and then without having the day-to-day support of your closest ones with you on this dream and this journey.
“Once you learn his story, you want to even do more for him and help him on this journey. That’s the kind of quality human being he is. It’s a really unique backstory, how he has been over here basically without his family and just willing his dream.”
The dream is slowly becoming a reality for Silva, as he has appeared in 18 of the Heat’s first 19 games as an undrafted rookie on a twoway contract. His unrelenting activity and energy has kept him in the NBA, with Silva yet to be sent to the Heat’s developmental affiliate in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
While Silva isn’t the most polished or skilled player on the court, he’s usually the one who never stops moving or fighting for loose balls. With two-way contract players allowed to spend up to 45 days in the NBA during the G League season, Silva has used 17 of those days as the Heat has kept him out of most practices to save his NBA days for games.
The Heat will have enough room under the hard cap to convert Silva’s two-way contract to a standard NBA contract starting Jan. 14, and Silva has enough two-way days available to play in every one of Miami’s games before then.
“Family back home,” Miguel said when asked what’s pushing Silva. “Listen, I’ll be honest with you, we’re poor back home. I always talk to Chris, I always tell him: ‘Remember where you came from all the time.’
“Because the house where we used to live didn’t have running water. Chris had to go with buckets like 25 minutes to get water and then bring it home for the family to take a shower. It’s crazy. When it rains, there’s some holes on the ceiling. Sometimes we have to put buckets between us when we sleep because the water drips on the bed.”
One of Silva’s dreams is to bring his family to Miami to watch him play in an
NBA game. The hope is that will happen before the end of this season.
“That would be fantastic because all the years I’ve spent here, none of them have ever come to spend time with me for senior year or anything like that,” Silva said. “If there’s a chance that I’m staying with the Heat after January and I find my own house, one of my plans is to bring my mom to stay a couple days with me and just enjoy her presence.”
Until then, Silva will just keep working toward that dream. Family will always be his motivation.
“We’re just coming off of a holiday, Thanksgiving, where it’s built in to be intentional about how grateful we are for everything we’ve been afforded,” Spoelstra said. “So many of us are so fortunate, particularly in this business.
That’s just for one day. But I think Chris Silva, at his core and at his heart, understands that literally every day of his life because he has been on a journey that’s totally different than most.”
On Wednesday, Silva will be thankful to have his uncle in the arena. Miguel, a big Celtics fan, will be rooting against his favorite team for the first time that night.
Silva’s journey hasn’t always been easy and full of these memorable moments.
There have been plenty of days Silva wanted to give up and go back home. But he continued to move forward on his circular path, hoping he will one day return to his family.
“Usually when I get to know a city, I like to find a circle where I can just run for hours,” Silva said. “Most of the time, I just think about my family when it gets hard. It just gets me going.
“I don’t like to get tired. If I get tired, I’m going to find a way to come back and try to get more work in.”
Because Silva must keep going to get home.
Dragic out: Heat guard ●
Goran Dragic is listed as out for Tuesday’s game at Toronto because of a strained right groin, according to the Heat’s 5:30 p.m. Monday injury report. It would mark the second game the 33year-old Dragic has missed this season.
Dragic completed Sunday’s 109-106 win over the Nets with no apparent issue. He finished with a teamhigh 24 points on 9-of-18 shooting.