Dunedin-born Mojave King taken in 2nd round of NBA draft by Indiana Pacers

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Mojave King of the Adelaide 36ers shoots during their NBL match against the New Zealand Breakers in Hobart last year.

Dunedin-born Mojave King has been selected in the second round of the NBA draft.

King will join the Indiana Pacers via a deal with the Los Angeles Lakers after being the 47th pick of the draft on Friday afternoon (NZ time).

The 21-year-old becomes just the fourth New Zealand-born player to be picked in the men’s NBA draft, following Sean Marks, Aron Baynes and Steven Adams.

King has dual NZ and Australian citizenship and has declared he wants to play internationally for Australia

King is the son of Leonard King, an American basketballer who became one of the all-time leading scorers in the New Zealand National Basketball League when playing for the Otago Nuggets throughout the 1990s.

He later worked for Basketball New Zealand as their High Performance coach and was an assistant coach of the Tall Blacks in 2005 and 2006.

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Mojave King’s mother Tracey played college basketball in the US for Duquesne.

The family moved to Queensland in 2007 when Mojave was four, when Leonard took a job as coach of the Mackay Meteors in Australia’s semi-professional Queensland Basketball League.

Mojave, a 1.95m shooting guard, signed with the Cairns Taipans in the Australian NBL in 2017 as part of the Next Stars programme to help develop NBA prospects.

He played for the Adelaide 36ers the following season and also played for the Southland Sharks in the NZ NBL last season and for the NBA G-League Ignite.

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