Gui Santos Reflects on His Unconvential NBA Journey After Signing Big Contract

All around the NBA, you can find inspiring stories. Players from all sorts of backgrounds and places have worked tirelessly to make their dreams come true and become NBA players. For some, their path was linear: college, draft, NBA playing time. For others, the grind looked completely different. 

For Gui Santos, who just signed a $15 million contract extension with the Golden State Warriors, the path was anything but typical. Santos was drafted out of Brazil with the 55th pick in the 2022 NBA Draft. He spent his entire first season in the G-League, and just now, four years later, he is getting proper NBA minutes.  

Santos recently spoke about his journey to where he is today. 

“Man, I think the keyword for that is patience. When I got here, I was a point guard. Playing back in Brazil was like playing as a point guard, having the ball in my hands, and I spent the whole year in the G League just learning how to fit in the system here. My goal was always playing in the NBA, playing for the Warriors, and I asked them, ‘What do I gotta do to do that?’ They said, ‘We’re gonna give you the way to do that. You gotta play hard on defense, you gotta be crashing the boards all the time, and you just gotta find Steph. It’s easy.’ So I said, ‘Alright, I’m doing that.’ I was just working on that in my first couple years….And I think this last season, right now, has been the best version of myself. It’s kind of like what I was doing before I got here, because I had to change my game a little bit to fit in the system. I think that’s what a lot of players struggle with, you know? Because it’s hard. It’s not easy to just be like, ‘Alright I’ll be a point guard my whole life,’ and now you gotta be the 4. Sometimes I was playing the 5 in the G League.”

Santos explains here exactly what it takes to wedge a role for yourself in the NBA. Work hard, figure out what your team needs, and fill that role. Santos has done that and now he is being rewarded for all his hard work.