From Fort Wayne to Xinjiang
The move came as a surprise. On 25 November 2016, Benjamin Bentil, the Ghana forward drafted by the Boston Celtics five months earlier, signed with Xinjiang Guanghui Flying Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association. He left the Fort Wayne Mad Ants of the NBA Development League to do it, after just one game in their colors.
Bentil, listed at 6 foot 9 inches, had arrived in the professional game from Providence College. Born in Sekondi-Takoradi in March 1995, he had gone to the United States at 15 and finished at St. Andrew's School in Delaware before joining the Friars. As a freshman he started 23 of 34 games and averaged 6.4 points, solid numbers for a player still learning the American game.
His sophomore season in 2015-16 was the one that made his name, and the night he scored 42 points at Marquette was its peak: he led the Big East with 21.1 points and 7.7 rebounds per game, was voted the conference's Most Improved Player and made the first team All-Big East. He declared for the draft in March 2016 with two years of eligibility left.
A short-term replacement for Andray Blatche
Xinjiang signed him to fill the place of the injured center Andray Blatche, a former Brooklyn Nets player and one of the best-known Americans in the Chinese league. Reports at the time, citing the Celtics fan site celticslife.com, said the deal was likely to be a short one.
For Bentil the attraction was obvious enough: the chance of regular minutes as a paid professional abroad, at a moment when no NBA roster had a place for him. That made the contract a stopgap from the start. Chinese clubs were limited in how many foreign players they could use, and a team that lost an import to injury had every reason to bring in a replacement quickly and send him home once the regular man was fit.
Rights, waivers and the Indiana connection
Bentil's route to China ran through two NBA rosters in the space of a week. Boston, who picked him 51st overall in the June 2016 draft, signed him in July and waived him on 21 October after three preseason games. The Indiana Pacers signed and waived him three days later, which placed his D-League rights with their affiliate in Fort Wayne.
The consequence for Boston was simple. Having released him, the Celtics would gain nothing if he came back to the American game; any claim on him now sat with Indiana through the Mad Ants.
One game in the D-League
His only appearance for Fort Wayne before the move was a big one. Bentil posted 27 points and 10 rebounds in a 120-99 win over the Greensboro Swarm, the Development League affiliate of the Charlotte Hornets. A double-double in a debut is the kind of line that gets a player noticed abroad, and within weeks a Chinese club had made its offer.
Zhou Qi and the CBA season
In Xinjiang he joined a squad that also had Zhou Qi, the Chinese seven-footer from the same 2016 draft class, who had been kept in the CBA for more playing time and experience. The regular season had started on 29 October 2016 and was due to end on 19 February 2017. Sichuan Blue Whales were the reigning champions.
Bentil made a quick impression. He scored 28 points on his debut against Jilin.
How the China spell ended
The stint lasted the length it was meant to. Bentil left Xinjiang in late December 2016 after 11 games and was back with Fort Wayne on 16 January 2017. Six weeks later the Dallas Mavericks gave him a 10-day contract, and on 1 March he became the first Ghana-born player to appear in an NBA game, a story told in Bentil's debut for Dallas.
Xinjiang, meanwhile, went on without him and won the 2016-17 CBA title, the club's first, sweeping Guangdong Southern Tigers 4-0 in the finals with Zhou Qi on the roster. Bentil's career took him to France, Spain and then Greece, where he spent the 2018-19 season at Peristeri in Athens before moving on to Panathinaikos.