GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — From Grand Rapids Christian, to the University of Michigan and now to the Atlanta Hawks. Kobe Bufkin is the most recent Grand Rapids native to get their name called in the NBA draft.
“It means everything to me. Just watching all the success pay off. It was a sigh of relief for sure. It gets tight in that green room, it gets tight for sure but it was a good experience,” said Kobe.
Bufkin went 15th overall to the Atlanta Hawks last Thursday. His mom, Kimberly and dad, Michael, have been here to support him the whole way.
“To hear his name get called, really just gave me a moment to reflect on the last 12 years that he’s worked so hard. It just made us proud,” said Kimberly Camp.
“That was probably one of the greatest moments of my life. We’ve had many but that was one of the best ones to see him. We’ve always wanted someone in the family to make it and obviously it had to be him. So it was just good for us as a family, as a whole,” said Michael Bufkin.
Eric Taylor, Kobe’s high school coach says it was no surprise that he’s made it this far, especially with the skills he started to learn as such a young age.
“I think he had the skill sets of being a great player. Now, how can you make your teammates better? How can you lead us? And he did a great job of that and I think it’s showing now that he’s got a chance to play in the NBA,” said Taylor.
With just a few days at home before he’ll straight training for the summer league, it was important to Kobe to get back to Grand Rapids Christian and say thank you to all the people that have supported him along the way.
“Just because they show so much love throughout the whole experience here. Obviously through middle school when my mom was posting embarrassing photos of me, they always like them. As I grew and got older, Grand Rapids Christian always showed love so it was important to me to say and come back and support my community,” said Kobe.
He'll play in his first summer league game on July 7th.
