Ben Vozzola sees journey end up back in Las Vegas at NBA Summer League
It was late during one of the two NBA Summer League matinees Monday. Guys still were hacking on defense. The refs still were calling it.
Former UNLV forward Bryce Dejean-Jones was stuck on one assist. That should come as no surprise to anybody who watched him play here before he got kicked off the team.
He also would finish with 26 points for the summertime Pelicans.
BDJ was having a real nice game, and for once, none of his teammates seemed to be complaining about his attitude. Khem Birch, another former Rebel (13 points, 11 rebounds), also was playing well.
So most local eyes were on those two.
Mine were on a kid sitting toward the end of bench for the summertime Nets.
His name is Ben Vozzola.
Vozzola played high school basketball at Centennial. If you looked closely, you could see he was wearing No. 38 under his thin Summer League warm-up shirt.
In pro basketball, being given No. 38 is like being given a number in the 70s or 80s at baseball spring training. Unless you are with the Celtics. The Celtics have retired so many jerseys that most of the good numbers are hanging from the rafters at TD Garden.
Guys wearing No. 38 during the summer generally do not make the club. But guys from St. Catharine College usually do not get to wear a jersey that says "BROOKLYN" on front, either, unless they cough up money for one of those Jackie Robinson throwbacks from the Cooperstown Collection.
Ben Vozzola didn‘t get to play pro basketball Monday afternoon. He never got off the bench. But that he was sitting toward the end of it with the summertime Nets is a great story for a couple of reasons.
Before he played for St. Catharine, which is not a hospital but a small Dominican Catholic school in central Kentucky, Vozzola either played for or spent time at the following schools: University of San Diego, Cowley (Kan.) Community College, Cal State Northridge and Pikeville, which also is in Kentucky.
This is what is known as taking a circuitous route to the NBA Summer League, a different kind of Kentucky derby. A real long shot. Bigger than Mine That Bird in 2009.
St. Catharine is a member of the Mid-South Conference, which had four teams ranked in the final NAIA poll.
They play good basketball in the Mid-South, but they play it below the rim. You don‘t see a lot of NBA scouts, or even the odd representative from the TBL -- the Turkish Basketball League -- roaming the Mid-South bluegrass. Not even when Pikeville is playing Campbellsville.
"It‘s been one hell of a journey," Vozzola said.
It‘s also one hell of an opportunity because there are scouts from a lot of pro leagues here this week, including the TBL, because Fenerbahce Ulker is always on the lookout for a sleeper or a late bloomer who averaged 15.3 points at a small American college in the bluegrass.
Vozzola is well-aware of the chance he has been given. Were it not for Sam Smith, the former UNLV long-range bomber, he probably wouldn‘t have gotten it -- Sudden Sam, who has remained friends with fellow Las Vegas prep legend (and Nets coach) Lionel Hollins, has been Vozzola‘s de facto coach since the kid was about 7.
Now he has become a sort of surrogate father, too.
On April 11, Rudy Vozzola, Ben‘s dad and a baccarat supervisor at Wynn Las Vegas, died of leukemia.
Ben didn‘t say a whole lot about it as we chatted in the cramped corridor outside the T&M dressing cubicles. Just a few feet away, Larry Drew II, who had 16 assists in the game just ended, was holding court amid a media scrum.
Drew, the son of an NBA star, was a former high school player of the year. He played his college ball at North Carolina and UCLA, neither of which scheduled St. Catharine when Ben Vozzola was there. Or probably ever will.
"It‘s kind of surreal that I‘m here," Vozzola said, not speaking of the cramped corridor in specific, but of the summer league in general. He even started the Nets‘ last game in Orlando, Fla., last week, finishing with 11 points and nine rebounds against the summertime Hornets.
The sad thing about Ben Vozzola‘s excellent basketball adventure is that his father isn‘t around to see it come this far.
A woman sitting in Section 116, Row C, about 20 rows behind the Nets‘ bench, spoke for Rudy Vozzola on Monday. She also was hoping to see No. 38 take off his thin warm-up shirt; she had taken a couple of days off work in case Ben got in for a few minutes, as he had Saturday night.
Toby Vozzola, Ben‘s mom and Rudy‘s wife of 29 years -- who talks and looks a good bit like a young Joan Rivers, and just so happens to be from Brooklyn -- said seeing their son sitting on an NBA bench would have been Rudy‘s dream come true.
She was so proud. You could see it in her eyes. You also could see tears in her eyes when she spoke of her husband.
"It‘s heartbreaking," Ben Vozzola said in the cramped corridor. "But him not being here is just more motivation."
His father was awaiting a bone marrow transplant when he had a setback. The end came suddenly. Ben was at a European scouting combine in Louisville, Ky., when his mom called.
She held out her cellphone over Rudy‘s bed, so Ben and Rudy could talk.
Toby Vozzola said that when Ben told his dad he was going to be a pro, you could see a tear form in her husband‘s eye.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.
