With the tenth pick of the seventh round, the Santa Cruz Warriors select Kiwi Gardner. #DLeagueDraft
— Santa Cruz Warriors (@DLeagueWarriors) November 2, 2013
Always in need of intriguing local stories, the Santa Cruz Warriors selected Oakland native Kiwi Gardner in the seventh round with their final pick of the 2013 D-League Draft.
Yes, you too can go from YouTube sensation to D-League draft pick if you just work hard enough! Although he's a long shot to make the roster out of open tryouts, there is precedent, as reported in a recent article from Rusty Simmons of the SF Chronicle.
In the past three years, about 125 players from local tryouts have made D-League training-camp rosters and approximately half of those players have appeared in at least one D-League game.
For the Warriors, Daniel Nwaelele was invited to training camp out of the 2012 Oakland tryout, and now he's in camp with the San Antonio Spurs. Stefhon Hannah was discovered at an open tryout in Chicago, and he's been the D-League Defensive Player of the Year for two consecutive seasons.
At 5-foot-7 he'll have an uphill battle to actually make the roster, but this is certainly a first step.