Bohls: Undrafted but unbowed, Jabari Rice is eager to start his pro basketball career

Jabari Rice may be one of the most unlikely basketball players to wind up on an NBA roster.

But he’s got a clearly set ambition in mind as he embarks upon what he trusts will be a long professional career.

Actually he’s not on the San Antonio Spurs' roster quite yet, which explains the one specific goal he has for his first NBA season.

“A contract,” Rice said. “And everything else that comes with that. But I’m trying to get a contract and be with the Spurs full time.”

For now, he’ll apply his understandably overdose of self-confidence and super work ethic and very diverse basketball skills to his current situation with a two-way contract.

He’s comfortable with this starting point.

It’s not lost on him that 11 of the 17 players on the current San Antonio roster reached there by way of Austin. There’s no shame in paying his dues like other Spurs like Julian Champagnie, who just signed a four-year contract after beginning as a two-play player.

So did Drew Eubanks, an undrafted player now with the Phoenix Suns after being a two-way player. Duncan Robinson didn’t get drafted either and started his career at Williams College before starring for Michigan, but he inked an $84 million deal with Miami and became the fastest undrafted player to hit 800 treys.

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The Spurs like what they see in Rice, even if he was limited to just 34 minutes over two summer-league games because of a low-iron deficiency that is now under control.

“He looks comfortable, and he’s a hyper-efficient player," said Brian Wright, the Spurs' general manager, who watched Rice at Texas multiple times. "He hasn’t had the easiest and cleanest pathway. Sometimes going through it builds the resilience to manage the tough league he’s walking into. He’s always played a role and accepted coming off the bench.”

Getting from there to here

There’s been nothing easy about his trip.

The 6-foot-4 forward went undrafted in June despite working out for a half-dozen teams, including the Spurs, Knicks and Trail Blazers. He didn’t start playing basketball until his sophomore year of high school and started just three times in 38 games at Texas after four seasons at New Mexico State.

For a time he was a pretty good football player as a quarterback and wide receiver and a Peyton Manning wannabe — “he’s one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time in the NFL,” Rice said — long before he ever embraced basketball as a sophomore at Fort Bend Marshall in Houston. He would have continued a promising gridiron future, but he blames his own “immaturity” with losing a spot on the football team.

He earned just two scholarship basketball offers out of high school, from UMass and New Mexico State, although in actuality he said he was a walk-on when he showed up at Las Cruces. A redshirt the first year. No gear. No playing time.

Strong on and off the court

There are a lot of things that Jabari Rice wasn’t. But by the time he completed his college days, anyone who had ever seen this smooth, almost effortless player came to understand who and what he was.

And that’s one of the most impactful Longhorns basketball transfers in school history right up alongside the late Lance Blanks (Virginia) and Jim Krivacs (Auburn). Rice was brought to Austin by second-year head coach Chris Beard, who was then fired at midseason and Rice evolved into not just a premier shot-maker on one of the best Texas teams in 20 years, but the national sixth man of the year.

He didn’t actually get a trophy per se ,but was universally acclaimed as such an invaluable role player. Aside from all those net-tickling 3-pointers he rained from outside at a 37.1% clip and an 86.3% accuracy at the free-throw line, his value may have been as much in the intangibles he brought to the team.

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“He has a real advanced understanding of how to play,” Wright said. “He doesn’t overpower you with strength or out jump you. But he understands angles and is very crafty. He’s also very mature and very vocal and good connectivity how he relates to his teammates.”

Rice’s erect posture, lethal range from the outside and lanky body frame suggests a little bit of Spurs great Sean Elliott, and Wright said he “could see some of the similarities.”

Those in Austin are already well aware of the 24-year-old former Texas star who never complained about coming off the bench. That was immaterial. He played starter's minutes, hit one big shot after another with six games of 20 points or more, and helped advance the Longhorns all the way to an Elite Eight berth, just a whisker away from last season’s Final Four.

“I’m still not over it,” Rice said of the season-ending loss to Miami that cost Texas a second Final Four appearance in modern history. “But you just got to deal with it and get past it.”

Starting his NBA journey

He’s all about the future these days.

While a bout with that lifelong iron-deficiency condition short-circuited his time in the summer league, he craved more minutes to showcase his diverse skills. He’s “a willing defender,” Wright endorsed, as well as a solid passer with great court vision and a deadly long-range shot.

That didn’t come easily because after that first redshirt season at New Mexico State, he worked tirelessly to become a more efficient shooter. He averaged just three points in 31 appearances and was so bad behind the 3-point line, he sank just eight of 50 tries.

“I tried to blame the coaches and say they didn’t play me enough, but I knew I had to work at it,” Rice said. “I worked all offseason with (then NMSU assistant coach) David Anwar and got where I’d have 1,000 makes each day. Then I averaged 14 points a game and shot 39% that next season.”

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Rice hasn’t forgotten what got him here.

He’s working out constantly in San Antonio with his fellow Spurs, rubbing elbows with draft sensation Victor Wembanyama and even had a conversation or two with the legendary Gregg Popovich although he says “I go up to him with some caution.”

But for all the exposure he had as a Longhorn who sank a blistering seven treys against Colgate in a first-round NCAA Tournament game, not everyone has followed the journey that has brought him to this point in his career.

They’ll learn soon enough, he vows.

“By the end of this year,” Rice said, “everybody will know who I am.”

'I'm in a great spot in my head space'

Texas fans already do. They were mesmerized by the best shot fake in the college game, one that he jokingly says he’ll teach Wembanyama as soon as the frenzy-stirring Frenchman schools Rice on his “one-legged three.”

Everybody’s talking about Wembanyama, and very few Jabari Rice. He’s cool with that.

Having to prove himself is nothing new to him because he never heard his name called through the two rounds of the draft. He heard from the Spurs about signing as a free agent even before the draft ended, received a couple of other offers but knew linking up with one of the NBA’s most historic franchises was “a no-brainer.”

Growing up in Houston, he kept up with all the NBA teams in the state even if he was an unabashed LeBron James fan through and through. Despite considering football his first love, he was never consumed with following the Cowboys and Texans but was absolutely obsessed with Manning, “my all-time favorite athlete. Great athlete. Great person. Great speaker. Greatest quarterback ever.”

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So Rice understands his place these days.

But that’s not to say he’s resigned to spending the entire upcoming season on court with the Austin Spurs in Cedar Park.

For now, Rice is likely to share a spot in Austin next to 19-year-old forward Dom Barlow, who advanced out of Overtime Elite but needs a lot of development. And Rice sees a lot of the same passion in fellow Spur Jeremy Sochan — a former Baylor power forward — as he does himself.

“I like how fiery and how competitive he is,” he said. “That’s how I am. Having people overlook you always makes me smirk.”

Rice isn’t likely to be all that patient.

And he and teammates should be encouraged by the new collective bargaining agreement that now allows for three two-way contracts per team instead of just two.

“I’m very confident,” Rice said. “I want to be part of the Spurs’ rebuilding plan with the bloodlines they have.”

Until then, he’ll bide his time in Austin alongside his beloved 4-year-old dog, a part-rottweiler, part-German shepherd named “King” and stay a little longer in his college town. But not forever.

“I’m in a great spot in my head space,” Rice said. “I just feel blessed that I’m living my dream.”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Uphill climb doesn't deter a very motivated Jabari Rice