Vincent King Jr.’s road to the BKT EuroCup has seen some unusual stops along the way.
VJ King crossed paths with Bogues, LeBron and Tatum en route to Hamburg
Eurocup News
5 Mins read
But the Veolia Towers Hamburg forward also has crossed paths with some greats in the game including Muggsy Bogues, LeBron James and Jayson Tatum.
King - who goes by VJ - is making his debut in pan-European competition this season with the northern German club after playing his first full year in Europe in 2022-23 with Bristol Flyers of England.
"One of the biggest reasons - if not the biggest reason - that I signed to play with Hamburg was the opportunity to play in the EuroCup competition. I am ready for the challenge and it’s very exciting," said the 26-year-old American.
King's time with Bristol was actually his second experience in Europe after he finished the 2021-22 campaign with AB Contern of the Luxembourg League. He decided to give Europe a try after not getting much playing time in the G-League that season.
"I wasn’t playing a whole lot and I went to Luxembourg and I was playing every second. As a basketball player, you want to be in a situation that you are going to play. Going out there I didn’t know the league was what it was. I was just excited about it," said King, who in seven games over about three months averaged 40.3 minutes as he played the full game six times, including all 50 minutes in a double-overtime game.
King was just happy to play at all in the 2021-22 season. He had missed the previous 18 months of action - including the entire 2020-21 campaign - with surgery to repair a stress fracture to his right tibia, which was very slow to heal.
"Not being able to play, it made me miss the game more than anything. I never had taken off so much time. I was forced to sit out for over a year," he said. "When I was able to play again I was like an 8-year-old kid when I was starting the first time."
King started the game in his native Cleveland and just a couple years later his family moved to Charlotte. There the young King played at United Faith Christian Academy. His coach there was former NBA star Muggsy Bogues - someone King didn’t even know.
"He was a cool guy. I didn't really know who he was. I thought, wow they have this new head coach and he’s really small," King recalled of the 1.60-meter Bogues who played 14 years in the NBA.
King’s parents eventually told him who Bogues was and the youngster enjoyed his time with the former star.
"He was a guy who liked to instill confidence in his players," King said.
Another boost in confidence came in 2012 when the King family moved back to Ohio but this time to Akron, where King would attend St. Vincent-St. Mary High School.
By this point, he was a huge Kobe Bryant fan - and still is to this day. And he didn’t even realize that SVSM was the high school that LeBron James attended.
"I visited for the first time and I walked into the gym and I was walking with Coach Dru Joyce and he was talking about the program and where I can fit in. And I look in the rafters and I see LeBron's name up there. I said: 'Did LeBron go here?' I really didn’t know that either," he remembered. "I was only tuned in to what Kobe was doing. I never paid any attention to LeBron."
King would actually end up paying more attention to King James though as the NBA superstar trained at his former high school in the off-season while King was there.
"He was there for two months working out. Seeing him in person was crazy. We were in the gym and we thought, 'he’s on the floor, let’s get off and give him some space and let him do what he needs to do.' But he encouraged us to work out with him, shoot with him," King said. "He’s an easygoing guy. That was the biggest thing that surprised me besides how big he was in person. Sometimes he would invite some of us to his house to eat with him."
The summer after his first season in Akron, King was introduced to another future star. He was selected to play for the United States at the FIBA U16 Americas Championship in 2013 and his roommate for the tournament in Uruguay was Jayson Tatum.
"We got real tight," King said of Tatum, who would become an NBA All-Star with the Boston Celtics. "Watching him grow and see where he is now I am really happy for him and you saw it coming. How he plays now is not that much different to how he played back then. And that still is a big motivation."
King and Tatum would win the U16 Americas tournament and then take the title at the FIBA U17 Basketball World Cup 2014 in Dubai the following summer.
Those trips would give King a taste of what’s to come in the world of basketball - and his intriguing road to the EuroCup.