Anchorage’s Daishen Nix has built a pretty expansive hoops resume – and he’s still just 24 years old.
Daishen Nix’s resolve has been tested time and again in pro hoops, but he’s got intangibles like desire, heart and toughness that keep his career afloat.
You can’t sink this guy.
Undrafted coming out of high school? Still made the league. Waived by multiple NBA teams? He’s back for more. Asked to prove himself again in the Vegas Summer League? Let’s roll.
Coming off the heels of a career year in the G League, Nix will begin his sixth pro season at the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas and see where it takes him.
The 24-year-old will lace ’em up for the Houston Rockets in the famed summer circuit July 9-19. His first game is Friday against the Denver Nuggets.
“Grateful for another opportunity,” Nix wrote on social media. “Ain’t bad for a kid coming out of Anchorage.”
Nix will also face Toronto, Philadelphia and Brooklyn in Vegas, where he attended high school at Trinity International and was a 2020 McDonald’s All-American after leaving Anchorage with his mom, Mina, following his eighth grade year at Mears Middle School.
He may have left Alaska, but The Last Frontier stayed with him as he’s got ‘907’ tattooed on his right calf. In 2020, he came back to his hometown and led Trinity over Dimond in the Alaska Airlines Classic title game before a sold-out crowd at West High School.
The first Alaskan to turn pro straight out of high school, Nix is the state’s all-time scoring leader in G League history (2,718) and ranks sixth among Alaskans with 99 NBA appearances – 20 fewer than Trajan Langdon.
Nix takes the court for the 76ers at the 2021 NBA Summer League.
His road back to the league begins this week in Vegas, where he’ll play in the summer league for the fourth time. In 2021, it was Philadelphia. In 2022, it was Houston. In 2024, it was Minnesota. And in 2026, it’s Houston again.
Nix had his most productive NBA season with the Houston Rockets in 2022-23, starting seven of 57 games and averaging 16 minutes, 4.0 points and 2.3 assists. He was waived after the season and spent the next two seasons with the Timberwolves organization, bouncing back and forth between the NBA and G League, before landing back in the Houston farm system.
Last season in the G League, Nix pumped in a career-best 23.1 points per game for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers with high games of 45 and 44. He also averaged 7.2 rebounds and 7.3 assists, recorded two triple-doubles and was named All-G League Third Team.
A genuine gym rat, he kept his season rolling two weeks after his final G League playoff game finished by going to China for a postseason run. He signed with Shanxi near the end of the regular season and helped the team reach the second round of the playoffs.
Two months later, he’s ready to run it back at the Vegas Summer League.
