Profile | Kai Sotto: biography, height, father, NBA Draft, NBL move, and Filipino national team stardom

From skipping division I college for the G League, to swapping for Australia’s NBL, Sotto’s NBA dream has never changed
How the 19-year-old giant went from playing barefoot in the streets to playing in Olympic qualifiers

Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games

Andrew McNicol

Published: 2:40pm, 5 Jul 2021

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Coming off a near-flawless senior national team debut at the FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers in June, Filipino basketball prodigy Kai Sotto is ready to make an even bigger name for himself.

At just 19, the towering centre has long been considered Asia’s next big NBA hope. Sotto simultaneously carries the dreams of 108 million Filipino people waiting for their first full-blooded basketball player in the world’s top league.

Though his last two years have been heavily impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, Sotto appears to be back on track after signing with an Australian National Basketball League (NBL) team and will be re-eligible for the 2022 NBA Draft.

Here’s what you need to know about the 2.2-metre son of a former Philippine Basketball Association star, who is nicknamed after a terrifying Japanese monster.

Filipino basketball star Kai Sotto trains ahead of his NBA G-League Select Team welcoming in Walnut Creek, California. Photo: East-West Private

Biography

Kai Zachary Sotto was born on May 11, 2002 in Las Pinas, Philippines. He started playing at the age of four – learning the ropes from his now-retired pro hooper father Ervin – before making a name in Ateneo de Manila Junior High School’s famed Blue Eaglets team.

It did not take long for the national youth team coaches to come knocking as the lanky teen continued to excel both physically and technically. Sotto made an instant impact, helping the Philippines under-16s win gold at the Southeast Asian Basketball Championships in 2017.

Kai Sotto in an Southeast Asian Basketball Championship match for the Philippines national youth team against Japan in 2017. Photo: Handout

With his family, coaches and management meticulously laying out his every move, Sotto joined The Skill Factory in Atlanta, Georgia in 2019. Notable alumni include former NBA MVP James Harden.

Having proven he was able to transition from the Philippines, where he would as a youth play “against tricycle drivers and construction workers with no shoes on”, to the US talent conveyor belt, Team Sotto plotted their next move. They decided to forego the conventional NCAA division I college programme path, and instead he joined the NBA G League-assembled Ignite team in May 2020.

However, before Sotto could even pull on his match jersey, he returned to the Philippines before the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in the US. This meant he would be out of the league’s Florida Disney bubble and miss several games.

Sotto and Ignite eventually agreed to part, which meant he would only be able to join the NBA Draft in 2022 at the earliest.

In April, Sotto announced he had signed a contract with Australian team Adelaide 36ers. He is expected to join them after Philippines’ Asia Cup and Tokyo Olympic qualifiers.

Kai Sotto of the Philippines shoots against Lester Prosper of Indonesia at the FIBA Asia Cup basketball qualifier match between in Angeles City, Manila in June of 2021. Photo: AFP

Father’s footsteps

Former national team player Ervin Sotto is already in the country’s basketball history books having won a gold medal at the 2003 Southeast Asian Games.

Sotto said his father’s teachings were instrumental in ensuring he had superior ball control and shooting. His mother Pamela, meanwhile, makes sure her golden boy is doing his morning yoga sessions and eating his favourite home-cooked meals in between.

“My dad always knew that I’d be this tall so he didn’t train me as a guard. Growing up in the Philippines, I was always the tall one and every coach had to teach me how to be the big guy. My dad was one of the few trainers to teach me ball handling,” Sotto previously told the Post.

Gilas Pilipinas

It was only a matter of time before Sotto would make his senior national team debut. He has played three matches so far, two games against South Korea sandwiching one against Indonesia in the FIBA Asia Cup qualifiers.

Gilas head coach Tab Baldwin said he was “impressed with how tough [Sotto] is” and “how quickly he has learned the basics of our system” despite only just starting to train. “He’s still learning ... He’s trying to go on a power game and he’s not a power player yet,” Baldwin added.

Sotto features in both of Philippines’ Olympic qualification matches in Belgrade, Serbia against the Dominican Republic and world No 5-ranked Serbia at the end of June. Gilas Pilipinas missed out on qualifying for Tokyo, going down in both matches, but Sotto figured heavily in their campaign.

NBA Draft

Sotto’s dream has always been to play in the NBA. He cited Tim Duncan, Yao Ming and Pau Gasol among his many idols. While hasty fans continue to ask when he will declare for an NBA Draft, he is likely to spend at least another year working on his game.Aside from his stint at The Skill Factory, Sotto got another taste of the NBA after being invited to the Basketball Without Borders Global Camp amid the 2019 NBA All-Star Weekend, a competition that saw the likes of overseas stars Joel Embiid and Pascal Siakam.

After joining the G League, Ignite head coach Brian Shaw had fuelled the hype by making early comparisons to big man Nikola Jokic, this season’s NBA MVP. Sotto had touched down, begun personal training, and met his highly rated teammates, but it simply was not meant to be.

Filipino-American star Jordan Clarkson, who won this season’s NBA Sixth Man of the Year award, urged Sotto to be patient and trust his move Down Under. “Work hard, don’t put any limits on yourself, and just put the time in and keep grinding, the [NBA] is gonna be there. Just go over there and be productive and learn a lot because a lot of those [NBL] players are really good,” Clarkson told ESPN.

NBL move

Barring any further hiccups, Sotto will debut for the 36ers after his national team qualifiers having signed a two-year contract with an option for a third. He was signed as a “special restricted player”, meaning he will not count towards one of the team’s league-limited imported players.

A high-profile move to the NBL is not unheard of. Young US stars LaMelo Ball, who this season’s NBA Rookie of the Year, and R.J Hampton played in the NBL for a season before being picked in the first-round of the 2020 NBA Draft.

After two years of chopping and changing plans, perhaps next season will be the one that Sotto can truly fulfil his nickname kaiju, a Japanese term for giant monsters that are more often than not seen attacking major cities.