Egor Dëmin entered on Tuesday having played a total of ten NBA games in his career.
And on a Nets team lacking veteran stars, the 19-year-old rookie from BYU, who grew up in Moscow and played for Real Madrid before college and the NBA, is looking for guidance wherever he can find it.
That includes a pair of legends, in two sports close to his heart: ex-Net Vince Carter last month and Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin this weekend.
Carter was with the Nets during their preseason trip to China and Ovechkin met with Dëmin after Washington’s game against the Devils on Saturday before the Nets won their second game of the season against the Wizards on Sunday.
While the time with Ovechkin meant a lot, the conversation with Carter will likely become more meaningful for Dëmin’s on-court career as Ovechkin is a “legend” in their native Russia.
Dëmin, as he often does, took notes during a conversation with the Hall of Famer, who also happens to be the favorite player of Dëmin’s father, Vladimir, who played professional basketball in Russia.
“When my father saw the video of me talking [Carter]he cried [and said]“Man, that guy changed the game,” Dëmin said after a shootout prior to Tuesday’s game against the Celtics at Barclays Center.
“Obviously everyone talks about Steph [Curry]LeBron [James] and Michael [Jordan],” Demin said. “But he said, ‘People like Vince really changed the game in their own way.’ That’s special to me, knowing how much that means to my father. I have more or less realized my father’s dreams at this point through my own experience.
And he hopes his experience with Carter translates into his play, which is why he filled one of his several notebooks while chatting.
“It’s hard to say what you can get from a player like Vince,” said the 6-foot-4 Dëmin. “It’s easier to say what you can’t get. With his experience, he probably knows more than anyone in this game.”
Dëmin, the eighth pick in last year’s draft, wanted to understand Carter’s “mentality, his thinking and mentality and view of the court from the time he played and from now on, from the outside. Sometimes it’s easier to see things from the outside and even better if you’ve played basketball before and that’s a lot of what he talks about.”
Because he wrote down information during the chat, Dëmin said he is able to go back and think, which is the reason for taking notes.
“I think this is just my way of learning and my way of understanding the information better,” Dëmin said.[Some people] it’s easier to view some visually on the screen [are] it’s better to go through it physically. For me, I like all the ways, but this is probably the fastest way to just [get it]. I don’t really have time to go over it with Vince, [so] I can ask him and then just write it down.
And if anyone wants to see Dëmin’s secrets, don’t worry.
“They are in different languages,” said the multilingual Dëmin. “I mix them up so no one can read them.”
They are “for now” in three different languages, Dëmin said: “Russian, English and Spanish.”
He hopes they translate into success on the field.
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