Japeth Aguilar's D-League Stint: Similar and Different to Kai Sotto's G-League Stint

There's no doubt that the hype surrounding Kai Sotto's impending stint in the National Basketball Association (NBA) G-League has every Filipino jump in excitement as this decision by the seven-foot-two prodigy from the Ateneo high school basketball program moves us closer towards finally seeing a pure-blooded Filipino to play in the grandest basketball league in the planet.

But no, Sotto wasn't the first player from the Philippines who tried to make his NBA dream more than just a dream. And he wasn't even the first Ateneo product to go down the path.

Before he was throwing down dunks for the Barangay Ginebra Gin Kings in the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA), Japeth Aguilar suited up for the Ateneo Blue Eagles in the Univerisity Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP) for two unfruitful seasons before making the move to fly to the United States and play for the Western Kentucky University in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Then in 2012, he became the first Filipino player born and raised in the Philippines, to receive an invitation to work with an NBA team. He attended an open workout then hosted by the Bakersfield Jam of the NBA D-League where he was able to up some decent stats that impressed scouts. In September of that same year, Aguilar was invited by the New Orleans Hornets for a two-day workout which was followed by an invitation from the Santa Cruz Warriors who expressed interest in drafting Aguilar if the latter was still available upon the team's turn to pick in the draft.

And that's what exactly happened as Japeth Aguilar was picked by the Santa Cruz Warriors as the 109th overall pick in the 2012 NBA D-League Draft which made him the first Filipino player to be drafted into the NBA D-League. 

However, Aguilar's D-League stint with the Santa Cruz Warriors didn't last long as he waived by the Warriors on November 22, 2012. He then signed a contract as a practice player before deciding to go back to the Philippines.

Aguilar's short-lived stint in the D-League is both similar and different to the upcoming G-League stint of Kai Sotto.  It's similar in the sense that Kai Sotto and Japeth Aguilar are both big men and both have the needed height to be able to play in the NBA. It's similar that both came from Ateneo but one major difference between the two stints is that, Sotto has been watched by scouts since he was playing for the national youth team. Kai Sotto has been able to get the attention of basketball pundits in the US in his short stay in the US thus far. 

If there's one thing that we can learn from Japeth Aguilar's D-League run, being in the G-League doesn't assure anything but for Kai Sotto, his upcoming G-League run with Jalen Green puts him in a better position to be able to make his NBA dream a reality. After all, Jalen Green and Kai Sotto are two highly-touted prospects in the US basketball.

Photo is from ESPN