Podz details ‘difficult’ decision to choose basketball over baseball originally appeared in NBC Sports Bay Area
Brandin Podziemski became an instant contributor during his rookie season with the Warriors, but what if the First NBA All-Rookie Team guard continued to play a different sport instead of pursuing his basketball dreams?
Podziemski recently revealed in “The dining table” podcast that despite his father’s desire for him to play baseball, he fell in love with basketball in eighth grade and decided that was the sporting path he would follow. This led the 21-year-old to have a difficult conversation.
“Oh, yeah. Super hard,” Podziemski said. “My mother, she goes with the flow. So whatever I want to do, she’s like, ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’ But my dad was so into me being successful in baseball, playing. It’s something he couldn’t do, so he wanted me to do it.
“It was a difficult conversation, I remember we were driving back from a tournament in Nashville and I said to him in the car, ‘I don’t think I want to play baseball anymore. I think basketball is something I love doing right now, and this is exactly where I want to stop.’
“I remember him almost crying about it because he said, ‘There’s no way. You’re so talented, you’re so gifted, you were made to play baseball.’ I just stuck to it and thought, ‘If you let me play, I’m going to make it in basketball.’ Five, six years later, he was called up, so he stayed true to what I told him.”
Podziemski was then asked if his father had any special message for him after the Warriors selected him at No. 19. in the 2023 NBA Draft.
“I don’t think it was anything he said. It was just tears of joy,” Podziemski said. “I think between my whole family, just because no one in my family ever played sports, even at the college level, most of them were in high school. So for me, being someone who got along with our family and being able to celebrate them, having them all there with me in Brooklyn was really fun.”
Podziemski quickly became a respected NBA player, reportedly being a highly sought after commercial chip in rumors offers for All-Stars.
If Golden State decides keep Podziemski in your long-term plans or include him as a centerpiece in a swap for a player like Utah Jazz forward Lauri MarkkanenIt’s safe to say that the Warriors benefited tremendously from his life-changing decision to forgo baseball in favor of basketball.
