In the month leading up to the NBA Draft, Dime had former Northern Illinois guard Xavier Silas video blog for the site. Before each of his workouts, Silas showed us the how to “look good, feel good, and play good”. I caught up with Silas this week to talk about going undrafted, getting an invite to the Philadelphia 76ers training camp, and Twitter.
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Dime: Talk about your mindset going into the draft. What were your expectations?
Xavier Silas: Well, I worked out for 10 teams, and I know there were a few that expressed some interest in me. Those teams told me that they were thinking about drafting me, but I knew I would have to roll with the punches because no team made a commitment to taking me.
Dime: When the draft ended and your name wasn’t called, what was your immediate reaction?
XS: Well actually the draft didn’t end when my agent called me and told me that Philly wanted me to come to their camp whenever the lockout was over. So I didn’t really have time for a reaction to going undrafted because of that.
Dime: Was Philly the only team that called during or after the draft about bringing you to training camp?
XS: I know my agent said there was a few more, but the only team that I talked to and showed interest in was Philly. In the draft they only took bigs, and I talked to them and the situation sounded right for me there. So my agent didn’t really put anything else on the plate for me, in terms of other teams.
Dime: Did you go out to Philly before the lockout?
XS: No I didn’t. I actually worked out for Philly a few days before the draft so I had just been there. Also, Philly didn’t have anything before the lockout, like any camps, they went and met with their current players instead of having a tryout or anything. If they did have workouts I was going to go up there and work out but since they weren’t in town, I decided to hang back.
Dime: How disappointed are that there is no summer league this year as that would give you a chance to compete against guys that were drafted and other undrafted guys?
XS: Well I’ve never been a part of the Summer League before so I can’t say I miss that I’m not going to play in Summer League this year because you can’t miss something that you never had. Everything happens for a reason though so I’m not really thinking about not having Summer League because that’s not something I can control.
Dime: You have the Sixers invite, but with the lockout, do you plan on playing in Europe or the D-League until the lockout is over?
XS: I’ve thought about it a little bit, but the situation has to be perfect for me to even think about anything like that. I have an invite to Philly and they said I have a legitimate shot at making the team so it would have to be really perfect for me to play in Europe or the D-League, but I’m not really thinking about that and I don’t think my agent is either.
Dime: What are your plans training-wise for the rest of the summer?
XS: I’ll be with Sundance Wicks in Austin, Texas, my hometown, for the rest of the summer. So I’m just going to be here and wait and see what happens. Football gave us some hope because it looks like the lockout is wrapping up before the season would be affected so hopefully the NBA can do the same thing.
Dime: What kind of response did you get to your video blogs?
XS: I got a lot of great responses. There were a lot of hits, close to 3,000 on each of the videos. I think a lot of people enjoyed it, and I hope to get back into video blogging, just got to find something new to talk about.
Dime: Talk about Twitter, you are pretty active on there. You have over 20,000 followers and have stated you try to follow back everyone who follows you. Why is that?
XS: I just think it’s fair. Everyone who is on Twitter wants to be followed back. I see people who only follow certain people, and I don’t think that makes someone exclusive, but it just makes certain people look like they are too cool. So I follow everyone back because I would want them to follow me back if I started following them. Also, I don’t think only people I know have profound or deep things to say, I think people all over the world have things to say that are interesting.
Dime: How do you think that makes you different from a lot of other athletes or celebrities on Twitter?
XS: You know what, I really can’t comment because I don’t follow that many of them.
What do you think?
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