“My score this season is 100 points.”
Ulsan Hyundai Mobis won 85-70 in an away game against Seoul Samsung in the 2022-23 SKT A-Dot Professional Basketball Round 4 held at Jamsil Indoor Gymnasium on the 27th, achieving 4 consecutive wins for the season. At the center of victory was the ‘real man’ Gage Prim.
Prim played for 31 minutes and 47 seconds, recording 24 points and 11 rebounds, breaking Samsung’s goal with스포츠토토. Samsung, who did not even have Lee Won-seok due to his tough play, had no choice but to collapse.
“It was a good win,” said Prim after the game. “My play is getting better compared to the beginning of the season. All the team members are helping, so it is changing positively.”
Even before the season, Prim was a player who was not expected at all. Rather, he was evaluated as the first to be ejected. It wasn’t a harsh evaluation because he was a foreign player with the lowest salary this season and a ‘newbie’ with no professional career at all.
But Prim was different. He has shown extraordinary performance since the KBL Cup, and he is recording 18.5 points, 11.1 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.4 steals for an average of 27 minutes and 19 seconds in 35 appearances this season. Even compared to top foreign players, he is not pushed behind.
Hyundai Mobis coach Jo Dong-hyun and Jang Jae-seok also gave high marks to this prim. Coach Cho gave 120 points beyond 100, saying, “Prim is a player who completely changed his initial thoughts.” Jang Jae-seok praised him as “a 100-point player.”
If so, how many points did Prim give himself? “I am a confident player. I want to give 100 points. That’s how much I try to pour everything on the court,” he laughed.
Prim is a tough player. He has a lot of plays that can be seen as a bit radical, but he is just as charming. But he’s not just hot on the court. He is a man coming home from work wearing a t-shirt and a short-sleeved T-shirt in Korea, where the worst cold wave ever hit. Did Prim run away because he was scared of even the cold? “It’s not cold at all,” he said. He didn’t even care about his surroundings. He gets a cold about once every three years,” he said confidently. Jang Jae-seok, who was watching from the side, said, “When it went down to -17 degrees Celsius, he still wore a long-sleeved shirt. It was the first time I saw it.” He laughed.
If Prim’s performance continues in the second half, he is likely to receive a salary suitable for a main foreign player, not a sub, in the 2023-24 season. As much as that, the value of prim has skyrocketed. If so, does he have any plans to stay with KBL next season?