Kai Sotto will be pushed physically, mentally in Australia stint, says 36ers coach

With Kai Sotto set to take his talents to Australia, his new team will be looking to push him even further to see just how good he can become.

Adelaide 36ers coach Conner Henry said the team plans to let the 18-year-old Sotto go up against grown men immediately, something they also did while training Australian national team player Josh Giddey.

"He will continue to be pushed here physically, mentally," Henry said in an interview organized by Smart on Wednesday.

"There will be days that are really good days, there will be days that won't be so good because of fatigue or he's getting beaten up at times."

Henry said that when Sotto’s name was first brought to them, they were intrigued to see what kind of skills the 7-foot-3 youngster had, and they were not disappointed.

"When we saw the initial film of him, the coaches and I were immediately excited because he's got a really solid feel for the game," Henry said. "He does the little things, within the game already, those types of things that you can't really teach. You can try, but when you see elite players already possessed of a really solid feel for the game, as coaches you get excited about it.”

While he admitted that Sotto still has a lot of work in front of him, he had nothing but praise when describing his new player.

"He's got great hands. He's able to shoot the ball from range. He's developing an inside game. He ball fakes. He throws clever passes. You can clearly see that not only is he picking things up as he plays, but he's probably one of those kinds of kids that when he watches the game, he sees things he wants to try and it just naturally comes to him," said the Adelaide coach.

Sotto, meanwhile, is excited to go up against the top players in Australia's National Basketball League (NBL).

"I don't really know much of their players there, but I look forward to playing against their national team players since they're some of the best," he said in Filipino. "It will be a good experience for me."

Sotto signed a multi-season deal with the 36ers, as announced by his team, on Wednesday. On top of his move to Australia, Sotto also reaffirmed his commitment to the Philippine national basketball team, Gilas Pilipinas. —JMB, GMA News