NY Knicks Draft: NY Works out Vrenz Bleijenbergh ahead of 2021 NBA Draft

Who is Vrenz Bleijenbergh and what can he bring to the NY Knicks?

Vrenz Bleijenbergh may be a foreign prospect, but don’t think he’s untested.

Often, the dissonance and strangeness we see from these unicorn-type prospects is a result of inexperience, or lack of exposure to top-level play, or even a laissez-faire basketball environment, Vrenz brings none of these things with him.

Despite being born in Brasschaat Belgium (hardly a hotbed of basketball talent) Vrenz clawed his way onto a professional team (the Antwerp Giants) at the tender age of 18.

I sat down with a source close to Vrenz to talk a little bit about his readiness for the NBA:

"“The really crazy thing is how he was able to get to where he is without those kind of NBA players to look up to.  There isn’t really any star from Belgium.  It’s not like France where you have Tony Parker, or Spain with Gasol, it’s not like that.  So, the fact that he knew at 13 that he wanted to be in the NBA?  That’s really special.”"

It is. And it speaks to his convictions as an athlete and as a worker.

I always love to hear stories like that. Like how RJ Barrett was training to be the next Michael Jordan before he could ride a bike, or LeBron bullying his subpar high school teammates into submission.

The players who stumble into the NBA due to their natural gifts make me squirm in my seat (*cough cough* Anthony Edwards *cough*).

I have so much more trust in the guys who have that deep-seeded ambition because this isn’t just a game to them. It’s their entire life.

That’s Vrenz Bleijenbergh.

He dropped out of school at 17 to focus full-time on basketball, he declined Division-1 college offers from schools like UCLA, Texas Tech, and Arizona because he didn’t want the academic distractions that came with it, and he played valuable minutes at the highest level of European Basketball this past year (the EuroCup).

If you just got worried about how smart the guy is because he wasn’t a fan of school, you should also keep in mind that he speaks three languages, earned scholarships to top-tier Universities, and who’s most valuable asset on the basketball court is his IQ.

So there!

So the mentality is there, the experience is there, but what about his potential role in New York?

For a Knicks team now turning their eyes to the playoffs rather than the lottery, the draft has now become a place to acquire cost-free assets that can help the team win now.

Normally, bringing in a young, unicorn-type prospect in from overseas is a play for the long view, but Bleijenbergh and his people have full confidence that he’ll be able to contribute right away to a winning NBA culture.