Making it to the NBA is not only hard; it is borderline impossible. There are just 450 jobs available to players, the top 0.01 percent of basketball talent in the world. While many of us obsess over draft night and fawn over watching young athletes achieve their dreams, the evening serves as a reality check for others.
Going undrafted forces players to explore options they previously never considered in pursuit of their NBA dream. Some choose to chase training camp opportunities and hope for at least a G League roster spot. Others prepare to move to a new continent and play in a country where they don't speak the language with the understanding that it will take years of success to even sniff an NBA opportunity again. These tales are often untold, and even the success stories are rarely pretty.
"No one in the United States picks up a basketball to go play overseas." This is one of the opening lines from Gabe York — a journeyman who was a high school internet sensation before beginning his pro career — in the Amazon Prime documentary Destination NBA: A G League Odyssey.
York is absolutely right, according to Wizards forward and fellow journeyman Anthony Gill, who spent four seasons in Europe after going undrafted in 2016.
"During my time in college, I never shot for overseas," Gill said following Washington's NBA In-Season tournament loss to Charlotte. "We're always taught at a young age that the highest level is the NBA, and you want to shoot for that. Throughout my whole time in high school, college, everything like that I was always shooting for the NBA."
Gill, 31, is in his fourth season in the NBA, all with the Wizards, who signed him from former EuroLeague team Khimki Moscow in the summer of 2020. Gill's journey to the NBA is unconventional but not unusual. Every year, talented college players go undrafted and are forced to go overseas to continue their playing career.
Gill's college career at Virginia ended with an Elite Eight loss to Syracuse and he moved into the NBA pre-draft process, where reality began to assert itself.
"Now, when did I become realistic about my ambitions and my dreams? I would say throughout the draft process." Gill said. He watched college teammate Malcolm Brogdon get selected early in the second round by the Milwaukee Bucks, and he went undrafted. But he still wasn't thinking about playing abroad.
"Even after draft night, I never really thought overseas was gonna be an option," he said. Through conversations with his agent, Sean Kennedy — whom Gill described as "amazing" — he began to recognize the NBA wasn't an option, either.
"He [Sean] told me during interviews I probably won't make it to the NBA," Gill said. "[The] only way I'll make it is by working extremely hard. That's what happened."
But the journey was far from linear, starting with Gill going overseas for the first time, which wasn't an easy decision. "I remember laying on the floor with my wife, outside, on the ground, and I had a decision to make between $25,000 with the Knicks or going overseas to a team in Germany for $100,000," he said. "I had just gotten married at the time and I was like, I gotta support my family."
When asked about how he factored his wife and their future family — they had their first two kids overseas — into his decision, he said that part was easy.
"We always say, 'Home is where we're together,'" he said. "Doesn't matter if we're in Istanbul, DC, or Charlotte where we're originally from. Home is where we are as a unit."
With that blessing, the higher offer from Germany, and his faith, Gill headed to Europe. It turned out to be a very short trip and a low point in his career.
"I was there for five days and got cut. I did one workout with the team, I did really well in the workout, and then they cut me," he recalled. "I'm thinking to myself on the plane back home, ya know, one, I'm an embarrassment. I didn't even make it in Europe. So what am I going to do now? Okay, this is it. I didn't make it to the NBA. I didn't make it in Europe. Now what am I going to do? I was thinking about getting a normal job. Luckily, I was able to get another job a month later with a Turkish team. It kind of worked out perfectly that I got cut from Germany because I was able to play a lot more than I would've and was able to do some things I wouldn't have been able to do in Germany as well."
Throughout the season, Gill adhered to his agent's advice. He worked extremely hard and was driven by his belief that if you're good enough, "the NBA or great opportunities will find you." He worked hard off the court as well, not just on his game but in life. He embraced being in Istanbul and the opportunity overall.
"My wife and I got to experience our first years of marriage in a country where no one spoke English so we were forced to talk to each other the entire time and grow a lot closer together," he said. "The biggest thing I always tell people when they go overseas is 'be open.' You can't go there as an American and say 'Hey, you guys need to adjust to my way of life,' we have to adjust to the way they're living. Other cultures are so beautiful and if you just stick to your Americanized version of life and say 'Hey, this is the way I do it, adjust to what I do' I think you're gonna struggle overseas. I always tried to adapt, I always tried to make friends with players on the team who were from that country and to get out in the community."
Some may take up Duolingo, Babbel, or other language learning apps to help adapt to the culture but for Gill, basketball was always the solution.
"I remember one time in Turkey going out to the courts in Turkey and just playing basketball with like some kids who were probably 11 and 12," he said, laughing. "We didn't speak the same language but the language was basketball. We end up playing a version of H.O.R.S.E… I don't know if I won or not. They were spelling something I had no idea."
"I always say if you ever have the opportunity, if you're ever fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go overseas and play you should take it just to experience the culture," Gill adds.
Gill's rookie season in Turkey was impressive. He averaged 14.4 points and 6.9 rebounds while shooting 47 percent from the arc on easily the highest volume of his career to that point. He was again a free agent and of course, interested in the NBA. However, his agent quickly and respectfully quelled that hope.
He told Gill after his first season, "probably not the NBA, and if you are going to go to the NBA you're probably going to have to go the same route, the $25,000 to get on a training camp team and Exhibit 10," Gill said. He returned to the States for the summer to join Cleveland's Summer League squad and was playing great, again raising hopes of an NBA offer.
However, EuroLeague club Khimki Moscow came in with what Gill described as "a number I felt like I couldn't refuse because I have to support my family" but gave him just one day to make a decision. Gill went back to the Cavaliers, who were not ready to decide on his future. So Gill took the offer and headed to Russia, where he would spend the next three seasons.
Playing alongside names that NBA fans will remember such as Alexey Shved, Thomas Robinson and Jordan Mickey, Gill impressed and was a star and leader for Khimki. He excelled by focusing on helping the team, something he says is necessary for overseas success.
"I always told myself if I was good enough they'll find me," Gill says. "I just worked extremely hard and put in countless hours to be the best player I could be. If the best player I could be translated to me being an NBA player then I can live with that. Or if it didn't I also could live with that."
"If you have the mentality that 'I have to work extremely hard so I can get to the NBA' when you're over there in Europe I think that really throws you off," Gill advises. "You're not doing what's best for your team at the moment. European basketball is all about the team," he said. "They can feel it if you're just trying to go out there and get buckets. That wasn't my goal. My goal was to be the best teammate I could be, to serve the team the best I could, and also to win games."
With that approach, Gill thrived and maintained flexibility as Kennedy negotiated an NBA-out clause in his contract each summer.
"There was always NBA interest," Gill said. "But it was always for the minimum, and I was making big money overseas so it wasn't taxed. So it's hard for me to turn that down as well. My goal was to make as much money as I could overseas and then come here."
After COVID canceled the rest of the 2019-20 EuroLeague season, Gill found his moment to come to the NBA by signing with the Wizards. Entering his third season with Washington, Gill describes it as "an amazing experience."
Gill has played in 134 games and made 12 starts for the Wizards since 2020. He's slated to make just under $2 million for the 2023-24 season which will put him at over $6 million for his entire NBA career. Overseas, that money is often only paid to the best and usually local players, rarely Americans.
During his time with the Wizards, pathways to the NBA have expanded, particularly for younger players. While maintaining that he wouldn't do anything differently, Gill offered advice for players who may soon be heading down a similar path.
"Open your eyes to other possibilities, there's other routes and other avenues, if you just commit yourself to being the best player that you could [be] no matter what position you're in or no matter where you are in the world," a smiling Gill said, "then the NBA will find you or great opportunities will find you." "You never know, you could experience something in life, you do go to China, you do go to Greece and love it, and fall in love and you want to live there the rest of your life. But you'll never know if you don't take that opportunity."
While Gill agrees with York's assertion that no American kid dreams of playing overseas, that journey can teach you more about basketball, yourself, and life than you ever imagined. With that approach, an open mind, and hard work, the NBA will find you. Just as the Wizards did with Gill.