Dink Pate is Ready to Make History and Become the First Pro Hooper Drafted Out of Mexico
ou could spend days going through every record in US basketball lore, and you’d never find another Dink Pate.
That’s because the 6-8 guard is the youngest player in American hoops to have gone pro—ever.
Last spring, just after turning 17, the wiry, athletic phenom bypassed his senior year at LG Pinkston High School in Texas to join the G League Ignite. He etched himself into the record books by signing a two-year deal with the NBA’s premier developmental unit, edging out former Ignite star Scoot Henderson—who, up to that point, had been the youngest American to participate in a professional basketball league—by five weeks.
But beyond Pate’s historically young age marker—which, to be clear, has become more normalized in the modern world of basketball—he’s simply a baller. Throw on his highlight tape and you’ll quickly understand why this Southern blue chipper has been wildly sought after. Ranked as a five-star prospect, he garnered recruitment from the nation’s premier college programs (Kansas, Kentucky, Georgetown and the like) as one of the most coveted additions of his class.
https://www.slamonline.com/g-league/dink-pate-slam-253-mexico-story/