Shaq Buchanan's Single-Site Experience: A Mix of AAU Days and Promises Back Home
By NBA G League Staff /March 24, 2021
Shaq Buchanan was leaving the store when his phone rang this past January. It was his agent, Josh Goodwin. After weeks of speculation around proposed start dates, Buchanan finally had his answer. The NBA G League was going to have a season.
The league would play at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Walt Disney World Resort near Orlando, Fla. It was announced on January 8 that games would start some time in February. It wasn’t until January 27 that a February 10 start date was given, with each team playing 15 regular season games in 25 days.
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“I was like ‘Whew,’ that kind of took me back to the AAU days, playing that many games in a short amount of time,” Buchanan said. “I was just happy to have a season because I was missing basketball since we were off for like a year.”
Basketball, at least at the professional level, was back for Buchanan. He had played with the Memphis Grizzlies during the NBA preseason in December 2020, and had been keeping in shape for whenever that call from Goodwin would come regarding the G League.
His next step?
Saying goodbye to who he calls his two best friends; his mother, Stephanie Latiker, and his daughter, Taylor Grace. Buchanan would end up being in the Orlando single-site from January 27 to March 6. He spent his 24th birthday there.
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“My daughter, when she found out I was going to Disney World, it was crazy,” Buchanan said. “She was just calling me everyday telling me she was ready to go to Disney World. I told her I would take her back out there. I just need a break from the campus right now because I’d been there too long.”
Buchanan’s decision to embark on such a makeshift season is just a microcosm of what sports -- and really the world -- has been through over the last year-plus: People leaving loved ones and the comfort of their own home to navigate through a pandemic. It’s been an exhausting time, and Buchanan’s experience gives an inside look at an opportunity in sports during it.