August 14 — LAS VEGAS — After five years in the business, Robert Franks has been paid to play professional basketball in four countries and on three different continents, but the 27-year-old is still looking for a professional promotion that would bring him closer to his home state of Brazil. Washington and realize his dream of landing a permanent spot in the NBA.
The former Washington State standout continues to work toward those goals after spending the 2023-24 season with the Nagoya Diamond Dolphins of the Japanese B.League and returning to the United States for his fourth-round NBA Summer League, spending three weeks last month with the Phoenix Suns.
In a sense, as an older player on the Summer League scene, it might be easier to feel like NBA dreams are slipping further and further away, given the youth movement that has swept the league over the past 10 to 15 years.
On the other hand, Franks feels like a more polished, mature version of the player who came out of WSU to make his Summer League debut in 2019 — “the 21-year-old kid who comes out nervous and jumpy and doesn’t know what the future holds for me.”
From that perspective, Franks believes he may have an advantage over the growing wave of young players competing for the same coveted NBA roster spots and two-way contracts as he does.
“So I think it’s more of a feeling of calm, but still hungry,” Franks said. “I’m still trying to pursue something and I still have that energy and desire.”
Franks was a member of four Summer League teams, participating in the Charlotte Hornets, The Dallas Mavericks, Boston Celtics and the Phoenix Suns. He wore three G-League uniforms and had a brief stint in the NBA, playing seven games for the Orlando Magic during the 2020-21 season before being released midway through a second 10-day contract.
Since then, most of the opportunities have dried up in the United States, and Franks has bounced from one international club to another, starting with two stints in the Australian NBL, where he played for the Brisbane Bullets and Adelaide 36ers, a stop in the Israeli Premier Basketball League with Hapoel Gilboa Galil and last season’s opportunity with the Nagoya Diamond Dolphins.
“Being away from home allows you to mature faster and use all those tools to come here, become wiser, more mature and I’ve kind of gotten the hang of it,” Franks said. “I just know what to expect.”
Franks came away with rave reviews of his playing experience in Japan, which began with a game against his former Washington State teammate Josh Hawkinson and the Shibuya Sun Rockers. The two posed for a photo with an Ol’ Crimson flag after one of the games and stayed in touch throughout the rest of the B.League season.
Franks wished Hawkinson luck before the former WSU forward headed to represent Japan at the Olympics as the country’s only naturalized player.
“He’s been here for five years, he’s established himself as a good player there and he played well in the (Olympic) qualifiers,” Franks said. “Josh is a great player. He was a great player at Wazzu.”
By the end of the Japanese professional season, Franks, who was averaging 18.4 points per game, and Hawkinson, who was averaging 17.0, were two of only 14 players to average at least 17 points in the B.League.
It didn’t take long for Franks to adjust to playing basketball in Japan, and the language barrier wasn’t hard to overcome either, given that he had a translator “by my side 24/7.” Franks also embraced Japan’s cultural values and traditions, which forced him to feel comfortable eating a popular grain product at almost every meal.
“Having rice available for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks was quite unusual for me, but it’s their culture, they love it and it’s good food,” he said.
By the time the B.League season ended in February, Franks was already planning his summer.
The Phoenix Suns were invited to the NBA Summer League early, finding value in Franks not only as an offensive weapon capable of spreading the floor with an elite 3-point shot, but also as a veteran capable of providing mentorship and guidance to the team’s young draft picks and two-way players.
“He knows he’s a good shooter, he knows how to space the floor, he gives us space and he’s humble as a little older player, who’s played overseas,” Suns Summer League coach Vince Legarza said. “He comes in and embraces his role and is a star, he has the sense of spacing and shooting, it’s really unique.”
Franks was realistic about the opportunity that would present itself and made the most of his changes of play, whether they lasted eight minutes early in the game or just two or three minutes midway through the second or third quarter.
“He’s super professional and on the pitch he really knows how to shoot,” the forward said. David Roddya former first-round draft pick who played with the Memphis Grizzlies and Suns before recently signing with the Atlanta Hawks “He’s a big, dynamic, four-man stretch type player. So again, he’s really good and that veteran is needed on this young team.”
Franks averaged just over 17 minutes per game, scoring 7.2 points on 44 percent shooting and 41 percent from three-point range. He also averaged 4.0 rebounds.
The Suns have found ways to use the 6-foot-7, 225-pounder as a traditional 4 in some lineups, but have also experimented with him as a smaller 5.
“I’m not really here to work on my game or improve on anything,” Franks said. “I’m just hoping to show them what I’m capable of and what my asset can be at the NBA level.”
Franks is currently residing at home in Washington, waiting to figure out where in the world he’ll have to go for his next professional basketball opportunity.
He recently competed in “Zeke-End,” a Seattle-based tournament hosted by Isaiah Thomascompeting alongside two other former WSU players — his former teammate Malachi Flynn and four-time All-Star Klay Thompson —and other current/former NBA players with Northwest ties such as Paolo Banchero, Payton Pritchard, Nate Robinson And Jamal Crawford.
Although the international time difference made things difficult at times, Franks was glued to the television following WSU’s historic 2023-24 basketball season, which culminated in the school’s first trip to the NCAA Tournament since 2008. Once the B.League season ended, Franks’ schedule cleared up and he was able to watch the final six games of WSU’s season.
“It was really nice to see them get going, especially toward the end of the season once they got to the Pac-12 level,” Franks said. “… They were well coached. Kyle Smith is a great coach and he’s going to do great things at Stanford. They’re well coached and they’ve had great players, so kudos to them and hopefully they’re able to stay there and that can become the norm from here on out.”