Damion Lee scores 13 points in NBA debut

Damion Lee’s road to the NBA wasn’t as smooth as most of the players he shared the court with Tuesday night.

Lee suffered a number of injuries throughout his college career, including an ACL tear that forced him to miss nearly the entirety of the 2013-14 season at Drexel. He used his final year of college eligibility to transfer to Louisville so that he could fulfill his dream of playing in the NCAA Tournament. After leading the Cardinals in scoring and positioning the team to be a top four seed in the Big Dance, he found out in early February that the school was self-imposing a postseason ban for incident he had nothing to do with. After graduating from U of L, Lee’s pro career got off to a rocky start when yet another ACL tear forced him to miss all of 2016-17.

And yet there was Lee Tuesday night. Seeing his first NBA action and looking look like he fully belongs in the league.

Less than 24 hours after inking a 10-day contract with the Atlanta Hawks, Lee scored 13 points, grabbed four rebounds and dished out a pair of assists over 17 minutes in his NBA debut.

Here are the highlights:

Couldn’t be happier for one of my favorite Louisville players in recent memory.