Dominick Barlow & Adem Bona speak at Summer League Las Vegas Day 1
So, how much did the the home factor and all that play into this? Like, did this even register when you were younger as a possibility? I think eventually ending. No, like my goal was never to to be an NBA player. It just kind of happened like played basketball as I got better and better. I love playing. My goal was always to play in college. I didn’t even end up doing that. But, uh, but no, that wasn’t that big of a factor. I mean, the best opportunity basketball wise, you know, it’s going to be the most important thing. This happened, you have both, which was cool. So, uh, obviously here, like on a two-way, I guess, but where’s the obviously the standing contract is always the goal? Like, where’s kind of motivation for you in order to kind of get there to that point? Yeah, I think like kind of what you said, like staying in contract is the goal. Um, but my goal right now is just to play the right part of basketball, just incorporate myself with the guys, and you know, things will take care of itself if you do that. You said you didn’t necessarily envision that you’d be an NBA player. That wasn’t your dream. So, what did you dream about? Being what what did you want to be when you grew up? I lived like one day at a time, but um I don’t know. I I just never really thought like, yeah, always trying to live in the moment. I think on me, but uh I know my mom was a teacher, so I probably want to be a teacher. What are some things that you’d want Sixers fans to know about you as a player or as a person? Yeah, just as a player like you know going to play hard every day. Uh going to work my butt off, you know, try to you know help this team win and you know just be a good person as a whole. I’m from the Northeast so I understand you know how people are in general. So yeah, I’m just excited to be here kind of joining the summer league team late or just being being kind of a guy that just hops right in. Just uh what’s that been like just getting to know you guys? Yeah. No, I asked him if I could play. They told me I could. Um, and I’m so excited about it. I think that’s a a good challenge coming in here and, you know, had one day of practice play. So, just kind of see how quickly I can pick up more. You mentioned talking with Nick and Darren during free agency. I guess what did they express to you that attracted you to them as far as just uh wanting to get, you know, bring in young talent that can play. That was like the biggest thing for me comes the opportunity where uh I have a chance to you know obviously show my work and what I know I’m capable of doing but I think just very transparent have conversations about the goals and the team obviously I want to be a part of it. Adam mentioned this week that the Ogres were to get together and maybe discuss expansion Vegas Seattle. What do you think about if the possibility arose that Vegas got an NBA franchise? I think it would be great if the season’s in winter cuz it’s really hot right now. So hopefully, you know, it’ be I think it’d be tough for players to be here during those dual months in the finals, but other than that, I think it would be great. Vegas, you know, especially in summer league, you see the turnout with all fans coming just to watch players play and just the atmosphere will be great. Do you have any particular goals that you want to accomplish like during this summer league time, especially the fact that you enjoy so much? My only goal is to just learn as much as possible and just, you know, continue to learn have NBA experience and continue to help my teammates and have my teammates help me. Are there any guys that the summer league roster or just the main roster that you have pre-existing relationship with? Um, so one of the ET on my I played with him when I was at L. That’s my guy. him. Um, Justin Edwards, he he played up a year in UI players. He beat us in the PC quarterfinal. So, that was Yeah. All right. Thank you. Yeah. I recognize summer league is its own different than the regular season or different than that. But still like what do what do you sort of um take as like learning experiences from a night like this that either you can take or that you teammates take? I mean summer league it’s different from regular season. It’s like it’s like adapting on the fly. you know, we have objectively there’s a lot of moving parts, but uh I think that’s if the key part is able to stay ready and be ready to play unlike today where we weren’t ready to play, we jump and kind of us towards the end. I think the key part is like stay ready and be able to where do you feel like you taking this uh the most like leap forward in terms of your communication on the floor? Seems like a lot of times a lot of you were screaming, putting guys in the right direction, things like that. How far like where do you feel like your development’s been during that time? I think it’s really important because um I feel like I’m the anchor cuz I see everything behind the play. I got to be able to voice it out to my teammates. Um you know, we we we haven’t been together for long. So, I’m trying to get to do what we need to do and do what it is to do, you know. You know, I always got to be foc regardless new team or old team and I think that’s my style. I’m always working on the floor. Uh yeah, whatever. Uh well, first congratulations on the Arsenal good season, you know, like and hopefully next year you’re going to win the champion league. Uh yeah, and um yeah, about what are you seeing from from him so so far? Um Ethan is a um is a great prospect. Um I’ve known him since he was in Europe. Um I remember the tournament playing in Turkey actually in um he has he has a lot of energy. He plays he plays hard. He runs the fluff. I think he has a he has a good potential in it. Thank you. Thank you. What have you seen from even in these games that BJ hasn’t been able to play, but TJ was talking earlier about just learning and absorbing and still getting something out? How do you see him kind of continue to try to um get adaptive and learn the system even when he’s not able to be on the floor? Yeah. Um VJ, one thing about him um I’ve learned and noticed that he’s eager to learn. even though when they start playing asking questions with the team all the time. Um I think that’s really important even when you’re off the floor or when you’re not with the team you’re still trying to like try to understand what the team means for most and I think that’s that’s the big thing when you adm a game like this where it gets away from you early and the team is made up of a lot of guys who they’re going to go elsewhere with this right these are not teammates you play with for a long time. How do you keep people together? How do you stay positive and kind of keep everybody in the same boat together? Um like you said like most of us is not going to be here together and also this is the first time most of us are going together. So um I mean just we just try to help everyone understand like the goal is to is to like win as much as possible play as hard as possible. Today we didn’t do that. Um we started slow and um and we kind of kind of the end but um try to have everyone understand the goal for every game. Even maybe we’re not shooting our best but we got to be out there playing our giving our whole lot to effort you know. So, um trying to have guys understand the goal is to play hard every day and give our
Dominick Barlow (pregame) & Adem Bona (postgame) speak at Summer League Las Vegas Day 1.
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1 Comment
Great interview