Malcolm Delaney, family over everything for the Baltimore kid

Malcolm Delaney waited all night for his name to be mentioned. It was the 2011 NBA draft and he had just finished his college career at Virginia Tech, where he had four spectacular years. As a sophomore, he had been named to the All-ACC third team, as a junior, he had been first team and since he averaged 20.2 points per game, he was the leading scorer in one of the best conferences in the country. As a senior, he scored 18.7 points per game and was still named to the All-ACC first team and was the conference second-best scorer. Despite this high-quality pedigree, however, no NBA team called his name and that was also the lockout summer, which canceled all the summer NBA activity. Instead of waiting longer, Delaney immediately accepted Chalon’s offer and landed in the French league to start his professional career. Since that day, he has always played as if he had something to prove, with what they call in America "a chip on the shoulder".

So after winning the French title (and the French cup) in 2012, Delaney won the Ukrainian championship (he was playing for Budivelnik Kiev, and was named to the All-Eurocup first team) in 2013 and the German championship (playing for Bayern, he was also the league’s MVP) in 2014. Three national titles in three years led him to the Lokomotiv Kuban where in 2016 he made the EuroLeague Final Four in a team that also featured Anthony Randolph, Matt Janning, Chris Singleton and Victor Claver. During that season, Delaney was named to the All-EuroLeague first team, after averaging 16.3 points and almost six assists per game. At the Final Four in Berlin, in the prohibitive semifinal against CSKA Moscow, Delaney scored 26 points, went 12-for-12 from the line, and Lokomotiv scared CSKA through the end, after making a miracle in the quarterfinals, when it eliminated FC Barcelona in five games. During the series, he averaged 15.4 points and 4.8 assists per game (he scored in double digits in 20 of his last 21 games).

But most importantly, during his journey, Malcolm Delaney never forgot where he came from. In the ​​Baltimore area where he grew up, children go to school with coats and hats because there is no heating. Delaney has donated thousands of winter clothes to help kids live the school activity as comfortably as possible, "because we expect them to learn on the desks, but you can’t do it in those conditions, if it’s too cold in the winter or maybe too hot in the summer, when there’s no air conditioning. At the beginning I helped without letting anybody know, I also organized a summer team of the AAU circuit, then they explained to me that by using my name it would have been easier to involve others. Aaron Maybin, a football player who grew up in the same area, also did it. Baltimore is a difficult place and kids need help."