{"id":398021,"date":"2023-08-18T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-18T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=398021"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"Saipan-masters-cager-meets-NBA-prospect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/Saipan-masters-cager-meets-NBA-prospect\/","title":{"rendered":"Saipan masters cager meets NBA prospect"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not often that you meet an NBA prospect, but that\u2019s exactly what happened to masters player Amor Zapata during his vacation in the Philippines last month.<\/p>\n

The 54-year-old nurse at Hardt Eye Clinic bumped into Kai Sotto, the 7\u20193\u201d center of Gilas Pilipinas who saw action for the Orlando Magic in the just concluded NBA Summer League, during his and his wife\u2019s checkup at St. Luke\u2019s Bonifacio Global City.<\/p>\n

\u201cI actually didn’t notice him immediately as I didn\u2019t have my glasses on, but my wife Ann noticed a very tall person. They were eating breakfast and we just also came down to order breakfast,\u201d said Zapata.<\/p>\n

He said what stood out immediately with Sotto\u2014well aside from his 7\u20193\u201d frame\u2014was his great attitude when it comes to treating fans like him.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery friendly, very humble kid, and all smiles. He\u2019s very accommodating and he gives time to everyone who wants to take a photo with him. I just greeted him how he was. He said he\u2019s fine. I told him that I saw his games in the NBA Summer League with the Orlando Magic and that he did great and told him \u2018just keep on going and just keep playing.\u2019 He said \u2018thank you, thank you\u2019 and we took a photo,\u201d said Zapata, who in his Facebook posts with the giant only came up to around Sotto\u2019s sternum.<\/p>\n

Zapata also didn\u2019t mince words against critics of the Philippine basketball wunderkind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJust disappointing that Kai has a lot of bashers. But he is only 21 years old. Please give him a break! My encounter with him was very inspiring and the biggest takeaway was how humble he was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zapata currently is on the lineup of Legends in the Inaugural SMEC-SMLEC Invitational Basketball Tournament 2023.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s been playing in basketball leagues on Saipan since 1998 and has won one championship in a squad that included past basketball greats Ed Palma and Ronald Delos Reyes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zapata played varsity in high school at Holy Ghost School in Tayum, Abra. He finished his nursing degree at Unciano Colleges in Antipolo, Rizal.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hardt Eye Clinic nurse Amor Zapata takes a photo with 7\u20193\u201d Gilas Pilipinas center Kai Sotto during a chance encounter last month while vacationing in the Philippines.<\/p>\n

-CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
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It\u2019s not often that you meet an NBA prospect, but that\u2019s exactly what happened to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-398021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}