{"id":413375,"date":"2026-01-17T17:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T17:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/413375\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T17:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T17:52:08","slug":"former-arizona-center-christian-koloko-signs-with-hawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/413375\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Arizona center Christian Koloko signs with Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Christian Koloko has found a new landing spot in the NBA.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The former Arizona Wildcats big man has signed on with the Atlanta Hawks on a two-way contract. Koloko became available after the Memphis Grizzlies didn\u2019t resign him following the expiration of a second 10-day contract.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Koloko will be hoping for a longer stay with Atlanta after starting the year with the Los Angeles Lakers, then playing a short stint with Memphis. In 13 games this season, Koloko is averaging 2.2 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 1.0 block in 15.5 minutes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Koloko joins a 20-23 Hawks team that is contention for a playoff spot midway through the season despite trading away star point guard Trae Young to Washington earlier this month. Koloko will compete with Onyeka Okongwu, Mouhamed Geuye and Asa Newell for minutes at the center position.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Atlanta is the fourth NBA team Koloko has played for, after starting his career with the Toronto Raptors. Toronto drafted Koloko 33rd overall in the 2022 NBA Draft.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Koloko was the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year and Pac-12 Most Improved Player of the Year in his final year at Arizona.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christian Koloko has found a new landing spot in the NBA. The former Arizona Wildcats big man has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[198199,179404,355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-413375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-arizona-baseball","9":"tag-arizona-in-the-pros","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}