Surprised Silva gets the perfect holiday gift

MIAMI — Goran Dragic was tearing up again, but this had nothing to do with converting the game-winning shot Friday night against the Indiana Pacers.

It was about what happened before the first game of the Miami Heat’s back-to-back set of home games at AmericanAirlines Arena that concluded with Saturday’s visit by the Philadelphia 76ers.

“He had tears in his eyes,” Dragic said of the moment, hours earlier, when rookie forward Chris Silva was surprised by his mother during the pregame shootaround on the arena’s main court, the first time the two had been reunited in three years. “And I had tears in mine.”

Like Silva, a native of Gabon who had returned home only once over the past six years, three years ago to renew his visa, while a sophomore at South Carolina, Dragic also arrived in the United States without speaking the language, far from family in Slovenia.

Then, Friday, in a reunion months in the making after meticulous planning that started at the level of NBA Commissioner Adam Silver in conjunction with the league’s NBA Africa wing, Carine Minkoue Obame walked out of the tunnel from the Heat locker room to share the ultimate holiday warmth.

“I couldn’t believe who it was,” Silva related hours later in the locker room. “I thought I was seeing a ghost. After I realized it was her, I couldn’t help myself. I was emotional.”

He was far from the only one. “That’s love right there,” forward Jimmy Butler said a few feet from Silva. “Family is everything and that will always be bigger than basketball. For his mom to be here is special.

“He has been away from her for so long and he’s working incred

ibly hard.”

Identified as a basketball prodigy and then run through a pipeline from a New Jersey prep academy to Frank Martin’s South Carolina program, to, now, the pros on a two-way Heat contract, Silva shared his story at a team function during training camp, a moment that resonated as the impetus for what would follow Friday.

“Some of the young guys told their stories to the team and Chris’ story stood out,” coach Erik Spoelstra said of that session in Palm Beach. “Incredible bravery on his part to be able to come to a new country, didn’t speak the language, didn’t know anybody, to chase a dream.

“I had goosebumps.

Everybody has goosebumps when he was telling that story.”

Then came more goosebumps, with the Heat recording the moment and sharing it during Friday’s Fox Sports Sun broadcast and then on Heat TV on the arena’s screens.

“When was the last time you saw your family?” Spoelstra asked Silva on the arena’s main court, after his team completed pregame preparations at about 5:45 p.m. Friday.

“Three years ago,” Silva replied.

“We have a great surprise for you,” Spoelstra said.

Then the moment that moved Silva, Dragic and teammates to tears.

“That’s my mom,” Silva said.

Nothing else had to be said, the embrace months and 6,300 miles in the making.

“I talked to her like two days ago and she was still back home on Christmas,” Silva said hours later. “We were just talking, catching up and all that.

“This is a great league. For them to do something like that for me means a great deal. It shows the heart of the people running the league and NBA Africa. I just thank them. I’m grateful for them doing this.”

For all the emotion delivered by Dragic’s winning shot, for the eruption in the arena when the Pacers’ final attempt failed at the buzzer, it paled in comparison to what was experienced without the need for ball or basket.

“Hearing the gasps and the responses from his teammates,” Spoelstra said of the reunion, “is something I’ll keep with me for a long time.”