INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) \u2014 New Pacers second-round draft selection and former Purdue standout Braden Smith is set to play in a Pacers uniform for the first time when the NBA Summer League begins next week.<\/p>\n
The Westfield High School grad was selected 38th overall in last week\u2019s NBA Draft, and he couldn\u2019t be more excited to begin his NBA career right in his home city.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was awesome,\u201d Smith said. \u201cJust being home around my family, my friends. Obviously, I went to college an hour away from here so being close to that. I have a younger brother, being close to him and being able to help him out in his next four years of high school, and obviously being a part of an organization somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith\u2019s younger brother, Maddox, will be a freshman at Westfield High School this year, just a 30-minute drive away from Gainbridge Fieldhouse.<\/p>\n
Smith just wrapped up a four-year career at Purdue, where the point guard ended as the NCAA\u2019s all-time assists leader with 1,103.<\/p>\n
As the 22-year-old point guard begins his first couple of weeks as an Indiana Pacer, he mentioned how the Pacers\u2019 team culture reminded him of what the Boilermakers had during his four years there.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see it how Purdue is,\u201d Smith said. \u201cGreat culture, great community, great people in the organization, and great players, so for me it\u2019s just like I\u2019m coming from one great organization to another one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, Smith comes into the NBA with a clean slate, and he knows he will need to prove himself on the court once again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love it, and I think that\u2019s the best thing for me right now is to be able to get that new switch,\u201d Smith said. \u201cYou start back at ground zero, and you\u2019ve got to build your way up. That\u2019s where I\u2019ve succeeded in my high school days and also my college days, is that well, okay, nobody thinks you can come in here and make an impact. For me, that\u2019s where I strive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith and the rest of the Pacers Summer League roster will compete in their first Summer League game against the Cavaliers on Friday, July 10th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) \u2014 New Pacers second-round draft selection and former Purdue standout Braden Smith is set to play…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-741931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741931","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=741931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}