JT Thor, who started playing basketball as a kid in Anchorage, was the 37th pick in Thursday’s NBA draft.
Daishen Nix, who often shared the court with him, went undrafted.
A 6-foot-9 power forward, Thor was selected by the Charlotte Hornets, who made him the seventh pick of the second round. He’s the first NBA draft pick from Alaska since two-time NBA champion Mario Chalmers of Anchorage in 2008.
Ak stand up. Jt thor congrats on makin it to the next league. One down one to go….Nix u next homie keep ya head up.
— Mario Chalmers (@mchalmers15) July 30, 2021
Nix, who was expected by many to also get drafted, was not one of 60 players chosen Thursday.
Thor, who turns 19 next month, played at three high schools in three states before winding up at Auburn University for his recently concluded freshman season.
At age 14, he left Anchorage, where he attended West High, he left Alaska to pursue basketball at a prep academy in West Virginia. From there he went to a high school in Georgia, and then on to Auburn.
The Hornets acquired the No. 37 pick earlier Thursday in a trade with the Detroit Pistons that sent center Mason Plumlee and the No. 37 draft pick to the Hornets.
Nix, a 6-5 point guard, also left Anchorage when he was young to play high school basketball in the Lower 48. He was one of the nation’s top high school prospects as a senior at Trinity International in Las Vegas.
He signed a letter-of-intent with UCLA early in his 2019-20 senior year, but later changed his mind and skipped college to spend the 2020-21 season in the G League, a developmental league for the NBA.