{"id":347916,"date":"2026-06-24T02:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T02:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/347916\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T02:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T02:27:08","slug":"san-antonios-kingston-flemings-becomes-atlanta-hawks-no-8-pick-in-first-round-of-nba-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/347916\/","title":{"rendered":"San Antonio\u2019s Kingston Flemings becomes Atlanta Hawks\u2019 No. 8 pick in first round of NBA draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN ANTONIO \u2013 The San Antonio standout proved to the world once again that San Antonio is a basketball city. The Atlanta Hawks chose Brennan alumnus Kingston Flemings<\/a> from the University of Houston with the No. 8 overall pick in the first round of the NBA draft.<\/p>\n

The former Houston Cougar decided to take his talents to the NBA after a phenomenal freshman year. In the 2025-26 season, Flemings, along with the Houston Cougars, put up an impressive 30-7 overall record. It\u2019s no surprise that the Cougars could potentially have four players from this season drafted to the NBA in a single draft.<\/p>\n

Flemings and the Houston Cougars announced on social media about this year\u2019s NBA Draft on April 19. Flemings said it wasn\u2019t part of the plan at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was never always the plan. Honestly, after the season, I was so down after the Illinois\u2019 game,\u201d Flemings said.<\/p>\n

The Cougars lost to Illinois in the Sweet 16 round. He said once the loss was processed, that\u2019s when talks of the NBA draft started. Then the potential for dreams to become a reality followed.<\/p>\n

Houston Cougars head coach Kelvin Sampson said Flemings\u2019 season was no surprise. He said because of their first impressions, Sampson knew Flemings was special.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started watching Kingston, the first thing that jumped out to me was how selfless and loyal he is,\u201d Sampson said.<\/p>\n

He knew Flemings would represent what he was building in Houston.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe played for the same AAU team, he played with the same high school team with the same coach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Sampson admitted he took a small chance when he gave Flemings a massive opportunity to be a starting Cougar. But he said he knew the trust he had in Flemings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a bunch of guys in the NBA. Some were more ready to play than others. Kingston is going to be a really good NBA player. His ceiling is very high at the next level,\u201d Sampson added.<\/p>\n

Sampson knows his young former superstar will thrive at the next level because of the way Flemings worked on the court and off. That work ethic translates to confidence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter where you\u2019re picked. When teams draft a Houston player, they know what they\u2019re going to get out of them,\u201d Flemings said. \u201cMy focus is always basketball. I\u2019ve played basketball my whole life. In San Antonio, it\u2019s obviously easier because I\u2019m around my siblings, so I could just mess with them all day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flemings said there\u2019s a lot to be excited and proud of, but he\u2019s also ready to get to work. \u201cCoach (Sampson) used to always say, \u2018If you\u2019re not getting better, you\u2019re getting worse,\u2019 so I think just staying consistent every single day and just trying to get better in any little way,\u201d he added. \u201cIf it\u2019s 0.1% or 1%, just if you\u2019re getting better, you\u2019re getting better. Just trying to do that in any way. If it\u2019s better as a person, better at basketball, better at shooting, better at passing, learning my teammates better\u201d.<\/p>\n

As a Cougar, Flemings checked many boxes and accomplished much. Here are the honors he earned in just one full season as a Houston Cougar:<\/p>\n

2025-26 Consensus Second-Team All-American<\/p>\n

2025-26 John R. Wooden Award All-America Team<\/p>\n

2025-26 All-America Second Team (NABC)<\/p>\n

2025-26 All-America Second Team (USBWA)<\/p>\n

2025-26 All-America Second Team (The Sporting News)<\/p>\n

2025-26 All-America Second Team (CBS Sports)<\/p>\n

2025-26 All-America Second Team (Field of 68)<\/p>\n

2025-26 All-America Second Team (Andy Katz)<\/p>\n

2025-26 Bob Cousy Award Finalist<\/p>\n

2025-26 All-Freshman First Team (Andy Katz)<\/p>\n

2025-26 All-Big 12 Conference First Team<\/p>\n

2025-26 NABC All-Gulf District First Team<\/p>\n

2025-26 Big 12 Conference All-Freshman Team<\/p>\n

USBWA Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week (Nov. 18, 2025)<\/p>\n

Lute Olson Award National Player of the Week (Nov. 17, 2025)<\/p>\n

Big 12 Player of the Week (Nov. 17, 2025)<\/p>\n

Big 12 Newcomer of the Week (Nov. 17, 2025)<\/p>\n

Big 12 Starting Five of the Week (Feb. 9, 2026)<\/p>\n

Big 12 Starting Five of the Week (Jan. 26, 2026)<\/p>\n

Big 12 Starting Five of the Week (Jan. 12, 2026)<\/p>\n

Big 12 Starting Five of the Week (Dec. 22, 2025)<\/p>\n

Big 12 Starting Five of the Week (Dec. 8, 2025)<\/p>\n

Big 12 Starting Five of the Week (Nov. 17, 2025)<\/p>\n

Per the Houston Cougars Sports Information team, Flemings is the first freshman in program history to earn All-America honors. On top of that, he set Houston\u2019s freshman single-game scoring record with 42 points against Texas Tech University. Also, he is the first freshman in school history to start 37 games in a season and was one of five Cougars to play in all 37.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s the first freshman to lead the team in assists since the 2015-16 season.<\/p>\n

Flemings attended William J. Brennan High School in San Antonio. His head coach at Brennan was Koty Cowgill.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 The San Antonio standout proved to the world once again that San Antonio is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[6387,61833,26195,3080,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-347916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-brennan-high-school","tag-kingston-flemings","tag-nba","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}