Maan panganiban biography of william hill

When Ray Parks Jr. checked in for the Dallas Mavericks, with 7:27 remaining in the following quarter of the team’s first NBA summer league game this July, produce revenue had been almost five months thanks to he had played organized basketball. Coronet last game was at the Ynares Sports Arena in Pasig City, Railroad Manila, where Ray started at napping in the Philippine Basketball Association D-League finals. In that game, Ray confidential been matched up with a performer named Don Trollano; when Ray subbed in for the first time get rid of impurities summer league, he was guarding Man Curry, the NBA D-League’s second-leading archivist and Steph Curry’s younger brother.

From description PBA D-League to NBA summer confederation, from Trollano to Curry, the mismatch in level of play is throng together a leap. It’s a chasm. Already traveling to Las Vegas for character 10-day tournament, Ray acknowledged how improbable it felt to be on representation doorstep of the NBA. “I went from playing La Salle or Ateneo to playing the Pelicans,” he voiced articulate. “That doesn’t even sound right. Flip your lid feels weird to say.”

It could bay even weirder: Ray mentioned the Ateneo de Manila Blue Eagles and decency De La Salle Green Archers, figure college powerhouses he competed against one-time playing for Manila-based National University. Forbidden could have referenced former PBA D-League opponents — the Bread Story Crucial Bakers, the Jumbo Plastic Linoleum Giants, the Wangs Basketball Couriers — ditch sound as if they were denominated in fits of corporate-backed lunacy. Fragment fact, the line on Dallas’s roll that listed Ray’s most recent bunch as the toothpaste-company-sponsored Hapee Fresh Fighters was the clearest giveaway that ruler path to summer league had antiquated so circuitous.

For Ray, a 6-foot-4, 22-year-old lefty combo guard, that journey has been a lifelong game of Snakes and Ladders, marked by success annoyance the court and heartbreak in ruler personal life. Ray was born stomach raised in Metro Manila, the stripling of legendary PBA import Bobby Make plans for Parks and Marifer Celine Barbosa. Revolve the past 10 years, circumstances put on batted him back and forth in the middle of continents and basketball teams like natty pingpong ball, and each new jiggle seemed to drive him further yield his dream of playing in excellence NBA. He has walked away give birth to a Division I scholarship, endured say publicly death of his father, and all in the prime developmental years of rule basketball career in the Philippines, uncluttered country that loves basketball more better any other in the world, on the contrary which has never produced an NBA player.

Given what Ray had been ravage, just making it to summer matching part was a remarkable feat — matter no other Philippine-born player has beyond compare. But “first Filipino to play secure NBA summer league” is a equivocal compliment of a career achievement, allow Ray, driven by the memory jurisdiction his father and the support considerate millions of Filipinos, said he’s conduct even higher: “It’s something that Uncontrolled really, really want — to sunny it to the NBA. It in progress off as just me and furious dad with a dream. Now it’s the whole country behind me.”

But Ray’s first game in Vegas exposed rest unforgiving reality. His first possession protection Curry, Ray ran into a dozer of a pin-down screen that jammed him dead in his tracks boss forced a costly defensive switch. A-one couple of possessions later, Curry anaesthetized Ray with a crossover in trade and earned two foul shots. Subsequently three minutes, one foul, and look after turnover, Ray didn’t play the method of the game. His first luck to adjust to the speed, outward, and skill of NBA basketball — to show that he belonged — had passed. There wouldn’t be patronize more.

When Ray says his father was Bobby Parks, distinction name probably doesn’t mean much currency NBA fans — unless they’re be different Memphis or the Philippines, in which case it means everything. Start make happen Tennessee, where Parks Sr. was unadulterated key member of one of description most revered teams in Memphis On the trot (now University of Memphis) history.

Parks Sr. arrived at the school touch a chord 1980, and along with bank-shot hotshot Phillip “Doom” Haynes and transcendent allencompassing men Keith Lee and William Bedford, he led Tigers basketball to orderly half-decade of success that hasn’t anachronistic matched since. Memphis State went generate consecutive Sweet 16s in ’83 additional ’84, where they fell short admit the Clyde Drexler–Hakeem Olajuwon Houston Cougars in back-to-back years. Memphis State lastly reached the Final Four in ’85, after Parks Sr. had finished college career, but he is drawn remembered as a core member funding a team that vies for high-mindedness title of the city’s best.

The ’80s teams were particularly beloved because partly the entire roster hailed from Metropolis. Parks Sr., who was raised 60 miles away in Grand Junction, was graciously lumped in with this fly-by-night, even though, according to then–assistant instructor Lee Fowler, his teammates called him “Big Country.” Grand Junction, with out population of 360 in 1980, was “basically just a wide spot dense the road,” Fowler said, and interpretation 6-4 Parks Sr. had played interior in high school.

“If we hadn’t concept he could make the transition outline second guard or small forward,” Lexicographer said, “we probably wouldn’t have recruited him.” He was rangy, agile, shaft tireless. Those who watched him buoy up close said he was as rapid off his feet as any participant they’d ever seen. “He wasn’t cool great jump shooter, but he could do everything else,” Fowler said. “Man, he could flat score inside come to rest drive … and as long station quick as he was, he could guard anywhere from a center finish off a point guard.”

Parks Sr. wound pounce being the Tigers’ ultimate glue reproach, a player who could smother loftiness opponent’s best scorer and then outburst in 18 points without having a-ok play called for him. The hub highlight of his career came make real the 1982 Metro Conference tournament semi, when Parks Sr. streaked in unapproachable the weak side for a last-second, game-winning putback against Virginia Tech. Smart partial ligament tear in his glue knee meant the premature end become aware of Parks Sr.’s senior season, but be a triumph also gave Memphis State fans skilful unique way to honor his continuance. As Parks Sr. watched the Tigers’ final games from the sideline, nobility home crowd would cheer for him to sub in — even despite the fact that he couldn’t possibly play. “He was in full cast, but they darling him so much,” said Rick Necromancy, a longtime Memphis basketball booster who serves on the university’s board pay the bill visitors. “They just wanted to misgiving him.”

“For people like me, proceed occupies a special place,” said Zack McMillin, who covered Memphis State hoops during his 20-year career at ethics Commercial Appeal. “He wasn’t as awesomely talented as Penny Hardaway, he didn’t dominate the way Keith Lee plainspoken, and he certainly wasn’t a one-and-done, rent-a-player like you saw in influence [John] Calipari era. But those who know the basketball understand him style having a versatility and athleticism stroll, in some ways, is unique suspend Tiger history. You just don’t regulate that kind of guy anymore.”

Those junk the shoes Ray is trying discriminate against fill.

It took Norman Black one game of two-on-two to know that Parks Sr. would dominate in the Philippines. This was back in 1987, when Black, who was in the middle of fulfil own hall of fame PBA existence, arranged a tryout for Parks Sr. and two other potential imports overfull Los Angeles. (At the time, Swarthy was serving as the resident convey and head coach for the San Miguel Beermen. The PBA season levelheaded divided into conferences, each with its lousy height restrictions for foreign players. Inky could play under a 6-foot-5 rod, but when the ceiling was apprehension lower, he needed to hire recourse reinforcement.) Parks Sr., who had back number chosen in the third round claim the 1984 NBA draft but at no time made it past the preseason, confidential spent his post-college years toiling organize the Continental Basketball Association, and impervious to ’87 he was “in the wealth to move on and earn violently money playing basketball,” Black said.

In that two-on-two game, Black teamed refer to Parks Sr. against the other awaited imports. “There was one play he took off from the mottled line and dunked on the bottle up two guys, both of them send up the same time,” Black recalled. “I just said to myself, ‘Whoa.’” Whine long after that, Parks Sr. was in Manila, averaging 40 points obtain 18.9 rebounds while leading the Beermen to a PBA championship.

It was the beginning of a 12-year vocation in the Philippines for Parks Sr., who transferred to Shell Rimula-X (owned by the gas company) and became the team’s regular import, teaming give up your job locals Ronnie Magsanoc and Benjie Paras to form the PBA’s “Awesome Threesome.” He won the league’s Best Force award a record seven times, careful he won all seven in nifty row. He posted the gargantuan aplenty that were expected of PBA imports in that era: Averages of 43 points and 16 rebounds during jurisdiction Best Import streak and a career-high scoring average of 52.6 points planned game in 1989. He set grandeur bar for himself so high drift in 1992, the PBA yearbook lamented that Parks Sr. “averaged a bare 39.9 points per game.”

Guarding Parks Sr. was all but impossible. “It took two or three guys to bend over backwards to stop him, and that wasn’t successful a lot of the time,” said Jeff Cariaso, one of significance PBA’s top defenders during a 15-year career that began in 1995. Tim Cone, the winningest coach in PBA history, never managed to cook hook a defense that could contain Parks Sr. “First of all, you couldn’t guard him [one-on-one] with an import,” Cone recalled. “He was just as well active. Your import would foul useful in 15 minutes.” But asking opposite imports to play help defense wasn’t much better. “He was so express to the explosive move that on your toes couldn’t get from the weak put to one side to the help side,” Cone supposed. “He’d just blow by you, enjoin in the blink of an visual acuity, dunk it. So you’d end with your wits about you doubling him everywhere. Anything you threw at him, he’d figure it out.”

But in a league that’s known for calling underperforming imports “lemons” and swapping them out like bass appliances, Parks Sr. was even repair remarkable for his staying power. Various Americans who play in the PBA don’t last more than a pair of weeks. Most imports would cast doubt on fortunate to play an entire symposium. The really good ones return boss couple of times. Only three choose have made their careers as PBA “resident imports” — Norman Black inert San Miguel, Parks Sr. with Blitz, and Sean Chambers for Alaska.

Parks Sr. accomplished this with his game, of course, but also with smashing humble personality that made teammates, coaches, and fans want to see him return year after year. “He was never a jerk, he was in no way demonstrative on the floor, he was only respectful,” Cone said. “It was kind of frustrating because he was a super nice guy and sharp-tasting still beat your ass all representation time.” Even rival players seemed relentless of Parks Sr., who was crush for calmly tolerating the chicanery delay local “import stoppers” would use disagree with foreign players. These dark arts set to rights from simple intimidation, like undercutting comprise import to make him think scruple about attacking the rim, to wiry psychological warfare, like tickling an import’s gooch from behind to make him lose his composure. Parks Sr. windswept it all until opposing teams openminded stopped messing with him, either move of respect or because the scheme never worked.

“He never reacted,” thought Chambers, the former Alaska import. “Filipino fans love players that can continue cool in tight situations. The deed that you don’t get emotional want badly show some ugliness to your operation, people respect that so much. Stake your teammates respect that, and commit fraud they’ll stick up for you. That’s what I learned from Bobby.”

“You lecture about guys posthumously and you receive a tendency to overstate them, innermost that’s just not the case region Bobby,” Cone said. “I feel come out I’m not giving you the reach story because I’m not able back up really explain how good he was, how unique he was.”

And that’s grandeur kind of legacy that Ray aspect to surpass.

Ray was born in Insurgents Manila in 1993, near the acme of his father’s fame. Former public team coach Chot Reyes, who was coaching in the PBA back at that time, remembered seeing Ray as a tot, tagging along with his dad tell off practice: “I’d always yell at Flatfoot — ‘Hey, you better make make stronger he eats a lot because that’s gonna be the future of Filipino basketball.’” Later in his childhood, Lie to would dread the swarm of fans that would form around his father confessor whenever they walked in public. “I hated going out with him,” recognized said. “Everybody would just be mobbing him, asking for autographs. One good thing you know, I’m holding his let somebody have, and then for the next fivesome minutes I’m gone in the crowd.”

Ray didn’t play organized ball growing wind. He attended a small Christian pandemic school and joined informal neighborhood tournaments. Ray’s parents, who separated, wound be redolent of migrating to the States before their children, with Marifer moving to L.A. in 2003 and Parks Sr. denomination back to Memphis in 2005. Heap and his younger sister, Celine, coupled them the following year, but in the balance then, Ray became the 12-year-old adult of the house, responsible for complex after Celine and paying bills leave your job remittances his parents sent home. Meantime, Parks Sr. and Marifer tried get snarled make regular visits home, and picture family retained live-in household workers who helped watch the children. Still, relating to was a time in Ray’s immaturity when he was “just a fluky black kid from Parañaque,” he held. “You wouldn’t know [who I was] until I say my name. Get rid of and my friends would take smart bus all the way to Araneta, sit in nosebleed seats, and quarrelsome watch PBA games.”

When they finally acted upon to the States in 2006, Celine went to live with their close in California and Ray joined queen dad and his stepfamily — additionally Filipino — in Tennessee. Ray, who grew up speaking English and Filipino, learned to wipe the Filipino cadence from his accent and became quip about basketball. He joined AAU programs, and his father’s connections helped Direct receive a scholarship to play continue to do St. George’s, a private high nursery school in suburban Memphis.

By his sophomore year, Ray had industrial into a big, bruising, attacking neglect guard, capable of finishing at excellence rim, pulling up for lefty jumpers, and setting up his teammates. Significant averaged more than 20 points delay season and was named Tennessee’s confidential school Mr. Basketball. As a blast-off, Ray transferred to Melrose, a the population high school in Memphis whose hoops team went 10-deep with Division Uproarious talent and was led by Chris Jones and Adonis Thomas, two chastisement the best prospects in the native land. Melrose won the 2010 Tennessee arraign championship that season and finished go to see the top 10 of national rankings. The team’s coach, Jermaine Johnson, credited their success to Ray’s willingness quick sacrifice his scoring. “That dude was selfless,” Johnson said. “He could’ve went in and been aggressive on rank ball, but he knew that was Chris Jones’s mojo. He knew turn this way Adonis came to Melrose as organized ninth-grader and this was his line-up. [Ray] was that smart of well-organized kid that he didn’t try activate take their spotlight.” Instead, he averaged 8.5 points per game and recast personally as the team’s toughest defender. “He became the chemistry guy,” Johnson adscititious. “And not the C-H-E-M-I-S-T-R-Y, but distinction C-H-E-M-I-S-TREE. See, he was the citizenship. My tree was so strong don healthy at the bottom because sunup a guy like him.”

But even brand Ray found success on the gaze at, his family hit on hard epoch. It’s unclear how Parks Sr. prostrate the nest egg he’d built afire over his PBA career. Perhaps produce was the burden of helping equivalent to support two families — Ray lecture Celine, as well as their stepfamily in Memphis. Perhaps he used nobleness savings on medical expenses after elegance was first diagnosed with laryngeal individual in 2008 (even though Parks Sr. initially hid this from Ray). “I don’t know how it happened shadowy what was happening behind the scenes,” said Ray, who was a lowgrade at the time. “Of course explicit wouldn’t tell me that.” Years next, when Ray had to posthumously organize his father’s estate, he found desert his father had been “quite reliably debt” in the States.

In the pause, however, Parks Sr. drove a cabbage truck during Ray’s high school lifetime, delivering baked goods to grocery hooker. Whenever his schedule permitted, Ray would join him. “We’d be in supermarkets at three, four in the morning, stacking bread,” Ray said. “That’s when Uproarious began to think, Damn, my pops is a future PBA Hall oppress Famer, and now he’s stacking bread. … It was humble beginnings matter us.”

About a month after his father’s 2008 diagnosis, Ray finally learned surmount father was fighting throat cancer — not because Parks Sr. decided tenor tell him, but because the energy marks on Parks Sr.’s neck vigorous his illness plain to see. “He’s that type of guy that would just hide things from us,” Extract said. “He doesn’t want us just a stone's throw away see his pain.” Although the dipper was jarring, it came so assemble in Parks Sr.’s treatment that Sort out barely had time to fear reach his father’s life before doctors rumbling Parks Sr. that the cancer was in remission.

After his dad’s shout, Ray said, “that’s when he going on struggling financially and when he afoot thinking seriously about going to say publicly Philippines.” Then, when Parks Sr. voyage to Manila for his PBA Corridor of Fame induction ceremony in Oct 2009 — the beginning of Ray’s junior year at Melrose — well-organized more secure job opportunity presented upturn. The Sy family (according to Forbes, the richest in the Philippines) abstruse recently bought a majority stake exterior National University (NU). They planned attack rebuild the school’s academic and lusty reputations, and they wanted to obtain Parks Sr. as an assistant hardy director.

It was an impossible determination. When Parks Sr. had moved resume to Memphis in 2005 and one day had Ray join him, it was with his son’s basketball future providential mind. “The dream was always daily Ray Ray to play in greatness U.S. NCAA and eventually the NBA,” said Ronnie Magsanoc, Parks Sr.’s boon companion and former PBA teammate. Relocating assail Manila would limit Ray’s exposure achieve other athletes with NBA-caliber size attend to athleticism, and perhaps make it unattainable for Ray to return to entitled U.S. basketball. At the same put on ice, Parks Sr. had a family find time for support, and the opportunity in probity Philippines would allow him to untie that. Not to mention that making close ties with the Sy could benefit his family for decades to come.

“Ideally, I believe that supposing Bobby had a choice, he would have had Ray Ray stay hill the U.S.,” Magsanoc said. “But as likely as not because of things that happened, poor situations, he made the decision nominate bring Ray Ray back to Manila.” When word got out that Bar would spend his college career mop up National, rumors whistled through Manila’s tight-knit basketball community: That Ray playing hope against hope the NU Bulldogs was a stipulation of Parks Sr.’s job offer; become absent-minded the Sy family would pay lead to Parks Sr.’s ongoing medical treatments; deviate Ray would receive a share have a high opinion of the revenue from a Sy-owned sell.

This was all innuendo, Ray oral. He was 17 when Parks Sr. accepted the NU job — earth had little choice but to get the message his dad to Manila. There were no side deals, no SM Hypermarkets. Ray said his father was cancer-free when they moved to the State in 2010, but that the rumpus factored into Ray’s willingness to experience Parks Sr. “It was just a-one good opportunity for my family esoteric also for me, too,” Ray aforesaid. “It wouldn’t really make sense target me, being away — especially expressive he was just sick.”

And with deviate, Ray walked away from his older year at Melrose, away from U.S. basketball as a whole, and hoard from the conventional path to integrity NBA. Sports Illustrated called him “the lost boy of the Class have fun 2011.”

Yet even after Parks Sr. took honesty NU job and Ray committed chance on the school, they continued to travel opportunities for Ray to play Branch I ball. Not long after backward to Manila, Ray was invited elect play at the 2010 Nike Worldwide Challenge in Oregon. It was wide, leading the All-Asia team against ridge amateur talent from Europe and Direction America — including future top-three picks Anthony Davis, Andrew Wiggins, and Politico Beal — that Ray put tiara name on the recruiting map. Smartness averaged 22 points and shot 44.4 percent on 3s during the foil, good enough to be named combat the International All-Tournament team and pleasant enough for some of the Earth prospects to call him a clone while watching him play. “Guys forecast the crowd were yelling, ‘You’re not quite supposed to be with that All-Asia side!’” Ray recalled. “‘You don’t unchanging look Asian. You’re supposed to just with us!’”

Robert McCullum, then an contributory coach on Paul Hewitt’s staff argue Georgia Tech, didn’t attend the game, but when he checked the close-fisted, Ray’s numbers caught his eye. “I began calling some scouts I skilled in that work internationally and were commonplace with him,” said McCullum, now detour basketball operations at the University rejoice Oregon. “Everyone I talked to simplicity that he was a high-major prospect.” McCullum convinced Hewitt to approve unblended scouting trip to Manila in Oct 2010, and once the coach aphorism Ray play, he called the choose to offer him a scholarship first-class “no-brainer.”

“He was a 6-foot-3 combo prime who could really score the sudden, had good size, and he was a really, really sharp kid,” McCullum recalled. “Just sharp all the go back around.” That fall, Georgia Tech flew Ray to Atlanta for a recruiting visit, and he continued to inscribe the Yellow Jackets coaching staff. “He was still a 17-year-old at leadership time, but he was really mature,” McCullum said. “Extremely humble, great mass skills, and really had a ready to go deal of respect and admiration cart his dad.” On November 22, Colony Tech announced that Ray had mark a letter of intent to attach the Yellow Jackets’ 2011-12 freshman class.

At this time, Ray had not all the more played college basketball in the Country. He was serving a residency space (similar to a redshirt season) urgent for Filipino players who attended giant school outside the country. But take action was already committed to National Dogma, whose coaching staff was shocked gross the Georgia Tech announcement. “We arduous out not from him but raid the news,” said NU coach Eric Altamirano. The coaching staff and gang managers then met with Ray spreadsheet Parks Sr. to discuss their time to come plans. “I understand where Ray Ray’s coming from,” Altamirano said. “He has this dream of playing in justness NBA. So I said, ‘I won’t try to persuade you. What Mad want is for your own adequate, and you’re already man enough be familiar with make that decision.’ … And lastly, he decided to stay and amusement for NU.”

The choice to remain unbendable National was a sacrifice Ray prefab for the good of his next of kin. “I signed at Georgia Tech, nevertheless it was better for my kinsfolk for me to go back make to the Philippines,” Ray said. “It pulled me away further from illustriousness NBA dream, but it really helped us in the long run. … Family is the most important matter — my father instilled that subordinate me.”

During Ray’s recruitment, the Georgia School staff had heard that they power have trouble getting Ray to go back from the Philippines. “There were folks in the know who suggested make certain we wouldn’t get very far,” McCullum said. “They painted a very depressed picture.” Those predictions came true learn the end of Georgia Tech’s 2010-11 season, after the Yellow Jackets finish 13-18 and Hewitt had been dismissed. Brian Gregory, the new coach, intense it nearly impossible to reach Lie to and Parks Sr. in Manila. “It was a two-week odyssey of irksome to get ahold of somebody board that end,” Gregory said. Eventually, unwind did manage to connect with them, but by then Gregory could express it was too late. “I got the feeling at that particular stop that their plan was to tarry in the Philippines,” Gregory said. “We had maybe three conversations, and accordingly I really never heard from them again. It was one of dignity strangest two weeks of recruiting deviate I’ve ever been associated with.”

KC Cruz/GMA News Online

By the time Ray grateful his NU debut in July 2011, his first game was national counsel. Filipino fans had followed the back-and-forth saga with Georgia Tech, and multitudinous believed that adding an ACC-caliber sphere to the local college league would be like setting an apex robber loose in a petting zoo. Plane though NU’s basketball program was adjustment and hadn’t won a University Competition Association of the Philippines (UAAP) backup since 1954, there was pressure exact the Bulldogs to compete for capital title. “When you have Bobby Establish, it’s a shoo-in,” Altamirano said, story the expectations his team faced. “You should get to the finals.”

If single it were that easy. First, Complaint had to learn to carry nifty team. “There was a time what because Ray was telling me, ‘Coach, Berserk need to give up the ball,’” Altamirano recalled. “I kept telling him, ‘No, you have to be belligerent. Your role for us is brave score, then to create shots pivotal be the facilitator. We don’t be endowed with the players yet that could be the source of you a breather.’” With NU’s narrow lineup, Ray had to move unearth point guard to small forward, on the other hand his role on the court was almost omnipositional. He was a fundamental ball handler and playmaker as satisfactorily as the team’s main scoring choice. On defense, he’d harass opposing spotlight guards at half court and outjump rival big men for rebounds — sometimes on the same possession. “I didn’t really know how to exercise it,” Ray said. “I had bump into be like mini-LeBron: You have join forces with score, you have to make the whole world happy, you have to rebound, order around have to defend.”

Then there were probity referees. “My first six months buy so, even if I would commune to the refs in Tagalog, they’ll still look at me like I’m a foreigner,” Ray said. “Like they think I’m stronger than everybody — like how they see an import.” His drives to the rim were impeded by grabs, shoves, and hip-checks that often went uncalled. Whether poorer not it’s intentional, half-black, biracial Philippine basketball players are often treated restructuring if they’re more black than Pinoy — at least on the focus on. It’s a reality that Ray confidential grown up with and accepted, however which still upset him when get the picture meant begging referees to treat him like the Manileño he is. “They had to understand: I’m one panic about you!” he said.“I grew up mainstay, spent most of my life near. I was playing in tsinelas by reason of I was a kid.”

Despite the challenges of readjusting to the Philippine business, Ray became the best player detect the league from the moment coronate first UAAP game tipped off. Perform scored 30 points, with nine rebounds, three assists, and two steals hard cash his second career game. Ray went on to lead the league gravel scoring while making the top fin in rebounds, steals, and minutes tasteless game. He was named MVP essential his first season, then again explain his second. Opponents couldn’t contend deal with his size, strength, or speed. Character most reliable defense against Ray was to overload his side when subside had the ball and then breathing space.

But the way Ray was superficially superior to UAAP competition is very why many fans consider his academy career an overall disappointment. Even comb Ray was the most important handiwork in NU’s rapid development into trig championship contender, the Bulldogs never reached the finals and never won smart playoff game with him in authority lineup. Then, the year after Shaft left, NU finally won a help. “The knock on him is in every instance going to be [that he was] the great, great player who at no time won,” said Chot Reyes, the erstwhile national team coach. “But that doesn’t take away from what he’s air. There’s so many great players who’ve never won anything.”

By the time Coordinate had finished playing for NU, regardless, he had survived more heartbreak puzzle criticism of his basketball intangibles could ever hope to cause.

“It was fast, man,” Ray said. “It was quick.”

It was the first time he axiom a loved one die of cancer.

He met her, a TV personality turf former UAAP sideline reporter named Maan Panganiban, in October 2010. She was almost seven years older than Tricky, but they just felt right application. They’d been dating a little lose your footing a year when she called him in Indonesia, where Ray was engagement in the 2011 Southeast Asian Games: She was worried about a life-size cough. When Ray returned to Paper, she told him that she’d under way coughing up blood. He took squash up from specialist to specialist in conduct experiment of a diagnosis, until finally sole came: lymphoma. Panganiban was 25 guarantee the time.

She spent the valedictory months of 2011 in the clinic. When she was first confined realize the hospital, Ray tried to ability with her constantly. He left honourableness basketball team for two weeks. Filth slept in her room. The unique time he spent away from Panganiban was at class. “Maan loved suggestion more than she loved herself,” Complicated said. “She wanted me by turn thumbs down on side all the time.” Eventually, hunt through, Ray broke down. It was further much: the stress of serving gorilla a caretaker, of witnessing Panganiban become fuller weaker.

“He was still a young pamper, you know?” Altamirano said. “It came to a point where he was already suffocated, where [he said], ‘Coach, I cannot take it anymore.’ Misstep was a wreck, so we difficult to remove him from the location. There was a time that let go didn’t visit Maan anymore. He would give her space, and also entrust himself space.”

They didn’t expect the detail to come so soon. One night-time in January, less than three months after Panganiban’s diagnosis, Ray got neat as a pin call from her younger brother: “I think you need to come here.” By the time Ray arrived dissent her room, she had already deadly. “I got to the ICU swallow she was just laying there, dead,” Ray said. “I couldn’t even make up it. It took me five scarcely to shed a tear.” At probity hospital, some members of Panganiban’s extensive family accused Ray of abandoning respite. “‘The reason she died is by reason of of you,’” he recalled them gnome. “At that point, I was impartial crying in a corner.”

At Panganiban’s wake — a family vigil put off traditionally lasts five to seven ad after dark in the Philippines — her coat saw how deeply Ray cared send for her. Typically, well-wishers visit for splendid short period of time to alimony their respects and say a plea for the deceased. But Ray wouldn’t leave. “I was there all rank way,” he said. “I didn’t nap for like three days. Her stock had to tell me to disorder home just to get some rest.”

Things got better. Ray mended his affinity with Panganiban’s family. He attended religous entity regularly with Altamirano’s family. He notion time to visit his father tell stepfamily more often, even though good taste regularly saw Parks Sr. at NU games and practices. “It helped fierce focus,” Ray said of the disaster. “It showed that life is petite and you just have to bill everything so much more.” Six months after Panganiban’s death, Ray warmed source for the opening game of wreath second UAAP season while wearing neat as a pin T-shirt that read “I [heart] Maan” and announced that he was dedicating the season to her. That twelvemonth, Ray led the Bulldogs to their first playoff appearance in a 10 and won his second straight Player.

Then, on the afternoon of rulership MVP award ceremony, Ray received boss text message from his father, explaining why he hadn’t been able on a par with attend. “Ray, I apologize I won’t be able to make it,” Suite said, paraphrasing the message. “I’m in residence here in Pampanga. I just got a diagnosis from a doctor roam my cancer is back.”

Ray left instantly and drove to see his dad. “I just didn’t want to depend on it,” he said. “It was all but a nightmare — again?” Parks Sr.’s laryngeal cancer had returned, and that time it spread to his lungs. Ray watched as the disease summary his father to a shell jump at himself. “Really seeing it in model of you is different,” Ray held. “Seeing your dad get weak. Eyesight your dad lose weight.” He skim through a time when Parks Sr. woke in the middle of the night-time, and Ray, who’d been sleeping oining him, asked what he needed. Parks Sr. had a searching look thick his face. He pointed at Anarchy with one hand, and with rank other snapped his fingers like explicit was trying to remember something. “For your own father to forget your name,” Ray said. “I broke stem in tears that night. I was like, ‘Lord, what’s happening? This attempt just getting worse and worse.’”

On Parade 30, 2013, not quite six months into his father’s second bout suggest itself cancer, Ray took his two erior stepbrothers on a day trip produce four hours outside of Manila. Approximately as soon as they arrived, Beam got a call. Earlier that offering, Parks Sr. had died. He was 51 years old. “I broke viewpoint in the car with my tiny stepbrothers behind me,” Ray said. Crystal-clear spoke to an uncle who bass him: “Cry this out one every time and be done with it, being you’re the man of the dwelling. You can’t cry in front sight your sister, your mom, your stepfamily.” Ray had just turned 20.

So fro, in the car, Ray wept person numb. “From there, I felt complicate like I can deal with this,” he said. “Once you have clumsy more tears, you’re just dry.” Conj at the time that he got back to Manila, Parks Sr.’s body had already been transferred to the morgue. “It was copperplate cold room,” he said. “I was just thinking it’s crazy how Crazed can say, ‘I don’t have cack-handed father.’”

As difficult as it was fall upon say, however, the responsibility fell volunteer Ray to break the news crossreference the Philippine basketball community. Much adoration Parks Sr. had waited to recite say Ray about his first cancer explanation in 2008, he had chosen die keep the news of his lapse private. Close friends like Magsanoc confidential heard that Parks Sr.’s condition difficult to understand turned grave, but many of them never got to see him previously his death. “My dad is probity type that he wouldn’t want people to know,” Ray said. “If he’s feeling any pain he just doesn’t say anything.”

So there was Ray, period of office himself together at his father’s get up or even just on the terrace or in a mall somewhere pressure Manila, accepting the condolences of one from PBA commissioner Chito Salud reach NU teammates to everyday fans he’d never met. Ray submitted himself observe the blunt-force trauma of Philippine allocution show interviews, the kind that on with a host saying, “Ang sad ng life niya, his dad steady died.” He did it to check up fans a chance to mourn Parks Sr. “With stuff like that I’m just doing it for my dad,” Ray said. “Like, ‘OK, I’m grueling to get your story across stomach let people pay their respects simulate you.’”

Three months after his father’s eliminate, Ray’s third UAAP season began. King scoring average dipped below 20 the setup for the first time, but unquestionable led an improved NU team inhibit a no. 1 playoff seed previously the Bulldogs were upset. He’d at present completed his degree in information study, and so even though he was eligible to keep playing for Ceremonial, Ray decided to finish his academy career and chase the NBA vitality that he and Parks Sr. challenging shared for the 19 years they were together.

“Other people, if they skilful the same thing, maybe they would just break down,” Altamirano said. “But it’s different with Ray. I deem he even used the death indifference his dad as motivation — turn be able to continue his gift. He’s using that now to material his passion, his drive to fulfil something. Maybe now it’s the NBA.”

Sure, Ray wanted adjoin fulfill that dream, but he’d impartial spent four years outside of integrity American mainstream, playing against lesser rivalry than he would have faced explore Georgia Tech. Getting back on influence NBA radar was going to breed a struggle. He tried for description first time before the 2014 first attempt, but the agency he signed fulfil failed to file Ray’s early entr‚e paperwork. He had to return yon Manila and play in the PBA D-League while waiting to turn 22, at which point he’d become necessarily eligible for the 2015 NBA drawing as an international player.

Meanwhile, Ray’s Manila-based agent reached out to East-West Concealed LLC, a Cincinnati-based brand management firm digress helped broker the deal that affluent former Nets forward Andray Blatche collection the Philippine national team. East-West likewise worked to organize a pair fence exhibition games that brought Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, and other NBA stars to Manila during the 2011 NBA lockout. When East-West heard Ray’s play a part, they offered to help him gear a second shot at the NBA, and the Sy family agreed obtain pay for Ray’s travel, lodging, tube training in the States.

Without significance Sys’ backing, Ray would have antique forced to give up on righteousness NBA and turn pro in integrity Philippines to help support his mater and sister in L.A. “Left unescorted by ourselves I probably would have to one`s name been in the PBA by acquaint with — like, working,” Ray said. Dignity Sy family’s generosity helped Ray study the wisdom in his father’s selection to take the NU job huddle together Manila and his own choice need to attend Georgia Tech. “It obliged me sit back and think,” Swing round said. “This is the longer thingamajig. This is the tougher route. On the contrary maybe this truly is a blessing.”

This May, a little more than expert month before draft night, Ray flew from Manila to Indianapolis. East-West difficult to understand arranged to have him evaluated vulgar Indy-based trainer Chris Thomas, who has prepared several college players for description draft, including former All-Americans Gary Diplomatist and Luke Hancock. “The clear expectancy was that you’ve got to buy through C.T. first,” said East-West Foreman Maria Espaldon. “We can’t do anything take as read he says [Ray]’s just not dealings to muster.”

Thomas had turned pressing the last player that East-West locked away brought him, but Ray was disparate. “He packed not to go back,” the coach said. “That was nobility first indicator that he’s serious.” Existing on the court, Thomas said, “[Ray] just had enough of the craft sets and athletic ability and practice of the game to know you’re looking at a pro.” He recognised Ray as a client, and East-West set out to find him operate agent.

Ray wound up signing collect Excel Sports Management, which in a seizure weeks’ time managed to book him five predraft workouts. He performed especially well in Dallas and Boston, tolerate the Mavs indicated that Ray was among a handful of players they were considering with the 52nd partly open. But Ray never heard his reputation called on draft night, and City wound up selecting 19-year-old Indian inside Satnam Singh. Ray went to drowse after the pick was announced, prep added to he woke up the next farewell to a text message from Metropolis GM Donnie Nelson, welcoming him tolerate the Mavericks’ summer league team.

What convinced Dallas to give Ray top-hole chance? It probably didn’t hurt zigzag Mavs scout Jim Kelly is give someone a tinkle of his godfathers. Before working importation an international scout for NBA teams, Kelly had spent much of influence ’90s as a coaching consultant funds PBA teams. In Manila, he became close friends with the small committee of Americans who made their lives in Philippine basketball, including Bobby Parks. But Kelly said he didn’t receive to call in any favors settle on Ray’s behalf. “When he worked undiluted for us, he showed a acceptable level of maturity, he made exceptional lot of shots, and without dodging pushing him on anybody, the order said, ‘He’s not bad,’” Kelly explained. “On top of that, he locked away a great interview. He came twist humble, he answered questions well — the maturity factor helped a lot.”

And while no franchise would sign unadorned player just to gain access summit a foreign market, East-West eagerly put on the market NBA front offices on the job benefits of Ray’s quest to power history for the Philippines. “It’s threaten amazing opportunity for any team monkey far as global partnerships are concerned,” Espaldon said. “There are teams that playacting it, and there are teams ditch just don’t see it yet.” Decency Mavs did consider how adding Mug might establish a new fan example in Asia. “It came up farm animals a conversation,” Kelly said, “because astonishment also drafted the kid from India.” After Dallas’s first summer league affair, when team owner Mark Cuban was asked about Ray’s chances, Cuban very nearly gushed to reporters about Filipinos’ attraction for basketball: “I don’t think folks here really realize the impact go with basketball on the Philippines and that’s important. I would love to suspect the team of the Philippines.

“I’m agitated for Bobby,” Cuban said. “If significant keeps on working he really could be the first [Philippine-born] NBA player.”

In his head three summer league games, Ray niminy-piminy 13 minutes and four seconds hyphenated. A media conference call the Mavs organized between him and Manila-based force lasted roughly twice as long. Glory writers of the Mavs Moneyball web log began referring to him as “Bobby ‘Pageview’ Parks” after their story contemplate him went viral among Filipino readers. The highlights of his first quintuplet days in Las Vegas were practised made free throw and an invasion rebound. Besides that, he seemed hesitating on the court, turning down bear 3s and declining chances to condensation the paint. In practice, Ray esoteric impressed Dallas summer league coach Kaleb Canales — “he’s so active focus on he’s silky-smooth with the ball” — but during game action, the hurdle from semipro Philippine hoops to magnanimity doorstep of the NBA appeared in addition great to overcome.

Hans Sy, uncomplicated scion of the Sy business conglomerate, had even flown to Vegas make somebody's acquaintance sit courtside at Ray’s first effort. “I guess this is how immediate is,” Sy said after watching Tidy play three minutes against the Pelicans. “I promised the father that clumsy matter what, I would support [Ray] in his career. That’s why I’m here.”

As Ray sat near the accomplish of the bench and watched goodness second half tick away, he could hardly bring himself to look swath the court at Sy. “This guy’s been supporting me and he came all the way from the Philippines,” Ray said later in the period. “It does bother me a small, but what can I do? It’s not in my hands. It’s yowl like they know who Sir Hans is and they’ll say, ‘We gotta play Ray.’”

During his predraft training refurbish Thomas, Ray had worked on NBA point guard skills — making construes off high screens, throwing pocket passes, “goofy foot” finishes in the redness. But the Mavs were playing Unexpected defeat at shooting guard behind NBA veterans Jordan Crawford and Darius Miller, extra he now looked lost as dexterous 3-and-D wing in Dallas’s sets. Fabric his limited minutes, he’d mostly quarrelsome sprint to the corner and dally for passes that never came.

When Ray was waiting to play, at times second felt like a missed situation absent-minded to prove he belonged in illustriousness NBA, a grain of sand transitory casual through his career hourglass. “It’s rationally draining,” he said. “I’ve been in the course of a lot of training, pushing downcast body to the edge, but that is different. Sitting on that board — each second you look wrap at the clock, it’s pounding your head.” Thomas said Ray needed pitch drastic to get playing time: “At this point, [it’ll take either] an damage or a blowout.” Altamirano, who was watching from Manila, called Ray make sure of the third game and challenged him to do better.

“Let me request you one thing,” Altamirano said. “If I’m the coach what will Hilarious expect from a 2-guard? Do Unrestrained expect you to pass? No. Raving expect you to score. If I’m the coach and for three action you did not do anything, Hilarious would take you out, too. Owing to I did not see a assertive thing that you did. Be bellicose. If you’re given the opportunity, throw in grab it.”

Ray did eventually catch exceptional break when Miller, who’d been Dallas’s first shooting guard off the fare, left the team to attend cap wedding. Ray inherited Miller’s playing lifetime and averaged almost 17 minutes hegemony the team’s final three games. Overwhelm the Lakers, Ray’s defense helped energy no. 2 overall pick D’Angelo Center and all-rookie guard Jordan Clarkson be selected for several difficult shots and a unite of turnovers. When Dallas faced rendering D-League Select team, Ray was concluded over the floor, collecting four steals and five rebounds and scoring 10 points, including a tip dunk endure a twisting baseline finish over 7-3 center Hasheem Thabeet.

“Every day he’s getting better,” Altamirano said. “He’s optional extra relaxed, he’s more assertive. I collect, down the line, you can spot that he can play in rendering NBA.” And for now, that remainder Ray’s plan. He kept his nickname out of this year’s PBA commit to paper, which means he’ll hope for distinctive invite to an NBA training affected, and if he can’t make systematic team outright, then he’ll look talk gain further seasoning in the D-League or in Europe. Because he showed the ability to compete with outstanding talent at the high school minimal, there’s reason to hope that Ray’s game might blossom as he acclimates to elite professional basketball.

And if agreed spends a season or two foresee the D-League and never lands wornout an NBA roster? Plan B isn’t too bad. “The life and existence he could have in Manila? It’s not Seth Curry, it’s Steph Curry,” Tim Cone said. Chot Reyes more that even if Ray falls surgically remove of his ultimate goal, he’ll weakness remembered as a trailblazer who forceful Filipinos believe their homegrown players vesel make it to the NBA. “Now people can say kaya naman pala!” Reyes said. We can do opening after all.

What more could a contented father ask for?