Greensboro, North Carolina -- It's early April in Charlotte, North Carolina, but the spring has yet to properly break. The NBA playoffs are still weeks away but for the Charlotte Hornets, the reality of an early end to their season has already hit home. There will be no post-season basketball for them in 2018, so this might be the best opportunity to play some of their prospects from the G-League to hopefully unearth a diamond in the rough for next season and beyond.
A Dwight Howard technical foul during a game against the Brooklyn Nets -- his 16th of the 2017-18 campaign -- results in a one-game ban the following night when the team is set to face the Memphis Grizzlies.
The stage has been set for Mangok Mathiang.
Mangok Mathiang's journey to the NBA has been anything but linear. Born in South Sudan, Mathiang and his family ended up in Australia via Egypt during his formative years. As a youngster in Australia, Mathiang didn't start taking basketball seriously until he was about 17 years old - his first love was Australian rules football.
"I didn't have no interest in basketball," Mathiang tells ESPN. "I was playing footy. I guess I had a thing with playing outdoors in the grass and stuff."
Mathiang, who was 6'5" at age 16, played football daily, and at the end of each day he would come home with another ailment, or soreness. His mother, realising the physical toll a contact-heavy sport like football was having on Mangok, encouraged her still-growing son to try his hand at basketball.
"She used to tell me, 'why are you still playing footy? You're going to get yourself hurt'."
Mangok's older brother, who played basketball at that time, also encouraged him to try his hand at the sport and the two would often play each other. Once Mangok outgrew his older brother, though, he knew he had to give basketball a serious look.
"My mum was like, 'look, try basketball. If it doesn't work out, you can always go back to your footy,'" Mathiang recalls.
At first, Mathiang says, he wasn't very good with a round ball. In fact, he says he was terrible. But he persisted. He went back to hooping a second time, a third time. He credits his competitive nature as being the driving force behind his resilience.
"The whole neighborhood basically played basketball," he says. "Everywhere I went everybody was like, 'Mangok, you did so bad,' or 'Mangok, you're terrible.' I'd be out there like, 'OK, I'm going to actually show you guys'."
That determination ultimately led him to the United States to complete his high-school studies and to continue pursuing basketball. His goal was to go to college, moreso to get a free education and make his mother proud, than to play basketball.
"I never thought I was going to go to bloody Louisville, or any big-time school," Mathiang says. "I just thought I was just going to go to a university, get a free education, and then go from there."
There were growing pains and a steep learning curve, but in his first season with the Cardinals, he won an NCAA championship. Things were looking promising but in his third season with the team, Mathiang suffered his first major setback as a basketball player.
As his junior year was about to begin, Mathiang broke his foot for the second time. Just when it looked like he was set to play heavy minutes for coach Rick Pitino, Mathiang now had to overcome a serious injury and battle through a crisis of faith as well.
"I just was like, 'OK, what's going on'? I sacrificed all this work and all of that, and I go ahead and I break my foot in my most important year?" he says. "I just went ahead and just started pointing fingers at God, like 'why now? Why me? Haven't I been through enough'?"
Mathiang allowed himself a little time to feel sorry for himself but his lapse in positivity was momentary, and he realised there was work to be done. He focused all his energy on recovering and rehabbing to come back better than ever.
"Everything happens for a reason," Mathiang says. "I just try to put as much positivity as I can within it and came back, and I actually had a very good senior year."
In his final year at Lousiville, Mathiang averaged 7.8 points and 6 rebounds in 33 appearances for the Cardinals. Coach Pitino had promised Mathiang that he would mold him into a professional basketball player when he first entered the college ranks, and now, after graduating with a 3.5 GPA, Mathiang was ready to go pro.
As ready as he thought he might have been, NBA GMs did not feel the same way. Mathiang went undrafted in 2017. Having overcome so many obstacles just to get to this point, Mathiang was not going to let this moment bring him down.
"I never sat down and said, 'I'm not good enough'," he says. "Once you do that, I feel like then you have very huge doubts in yourself, and it's going to be tough for you to get back into the confidence then."
Fast forward to the present day, and back to that Hornets game against the Grizzlies.
In his first minutes as an NBA player, Mathiang scored 8 points on 4/5 shooting from the field, and grabbed four rebounds. The numbers don't jump out at you, but they mean so much more. It's a manifestation of a year slogging it out in the G-League, working on his craft, trying to become better each day.
Mathiang signed a two-way deal with the Charlotte Hornets after impressing them during Summer League in 2017. In the NBA, two-way deals allow players to spend a finite amount of time with their respective NBA team, and the rest of their season with the G-League affiliate. In Mathiang's case, his time was split between the Hornets and the Greensboro Swarm.
Mathiang knew his minutes in the NBA with the Hornets would be minimal.
"Coming in, I was like, 'you're actually playing behind a Hall-of-Famer in Dwight Howard', and I [told myself] don't sit here and expect to come in and play your rookie season a lot."
Mathiang used his time in Charlotte to learn from the eight-time All-Star. Howard and Mathiang developed a friendship; funnily enough, it was the connection to Australia that first intrigued Howard.
"I have a big love for Australia," Howard tells ESPN. "I go every summer and that's where it started; the communication, and then on the floor, you know, just saw a lot of promise in his game, and the way he approaches basketball. So, you know, just wanted to help him out in any way possible [and] teach him the ropes."
Mathiang calls the opportunity to learn from a player like Howard "huge."
"It's just like having a big brother in the world," he says. "I feel like he's taught me so much already. If I didn't really have Dwight here, things would probably would have been a little harder, but with him being around and just me knowing that, OK, mate, you're all right."
There were eight other Australians on NBA rosters this past season and Mathiang was the solitary player not in a team's regular rotation. It would be easy for Mathiang to be bitter about his lack of playing time in the NBA, but according to Howard, the rookie has been patient and understanding about his place on the Hornets' roster.
"He hasn't complained, he's just played basketball," Howard told ESPN. "He's played at a very high level down in G League and, you know, he's in a very tough position because he wants to be here with us, but at the same time, he wants to get some playing time. So, just for him, it's just ... staying focused on the things that he can control, which is how hard he plays."
Talk to any of the Hornets or Swarm coaching staff and one of the first things they'll praise about Mathiang his willingness to absorb and learn as much as he can. Learning behind a player like Howard, absorbing knowledge from an experienced coach like Steve Clifford, or even getting a chance to speak to Charlotte owner Michael Jordan, Mathiang is soaking up all the advice he's been given.
The biggest takeaway from his first season as a two-way player, however?
"That any day is different," Mathiang says. "You could walk into a day and it's like, out of nowhere you blow up, and you're like, this huge name, or you could go into the NBA and it's like, they gave you a shot and you didn't take a good, you know, advantage of it, and then now you're basically out of the NBA," he says.
From South Sudan to Australia to playing for an organisation owned by arguably the greatest basketball player ever, Mangok Mathiang's journey is still far from over.
"What are the chances of a kid that was born in Sudan, came to Australia, didn't really like basketball, who was playing footy, and to come out here, win a national championship his first year? Play for one of the greatest college coaches in history? And to come and work for one of the greatest basketball players ever? That's huge," he says. "That's very unreal."
