Creek's Battle to the Bright Lights of Brooklyn

The opportunity to chase an NBA dream should be an absolutely non-negotiable and resounding ‘yes’ if it crosses your table, right? Wrong.

When Mitch Creek signed with the Brooklyn Nets on an Exhibit-10 contract in 2018, he was turning his back on a potentially far more lucrative offer to play in Germany.

Appearing on the first episode of ‘Under the Surface’, Creek went into detail about his experience in making it to the NBA floor.

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“I signed in Germany, I played the end of a season and then I re-signed with a team called Wurzburg … I got a call [from Brooklyn] and it was like ‘we want you to do an Exhibit-10 contract, come to training camp, you can make a tiny bit of money … and if you don’t make the team you play in the G-Leauge’,” Creek said.

“I’d just signed in Germany. This was my first big pay check … and now I’m going to turn it all away for an opportunity to play in the NBA?

“This is a big decision. Do I go to Germany you make probably in a month what you’re going to make in seven months?

“My first contract [with Adelaide] was $30,000 . My next two pay checks after that were under $50,000 pretty well. I wasn’t making any money."

Creek elected to chase his NBA dream, and while representing an NBA side while playing on a two-way contract sounds like an incredible opportunity, the dangling carrot of a 10-day contract took its toll on the Phoenix star.

“We were an hour and a half out of Manhattan. I wasn’t in New York or Brooklyn living my life. You’re making bugger-all money, you’re getting driven into the ground. You’re playing every two or three days and the thing was because I did the camp and stuff I was like the injury guy.

“I had to play against like Kenneth Faried, Caris LeVert, Spencer Dinwiddie, like big time players. I would come in and work out sometimes in the morning, I’d come back in a two-hour private car from the Brooklyn Nets and then I’d train with the Long Island Nets. It was brutal.”

“We told the team ‘if we’re not going to get [a ten-day contract] that’s fine, we can still go to Europe and play three months.

“A week later I got a call that said ‘you’re getting a 10 day contract and you’re going to play for the Brooklyn Nets … I cried, like, immensely. I’ve never sobbed so much in my life.”

The full episode of ‘Under the Surface’ is now live across all NBL platforms. Tune into the full episode here.