Scott Machado has already won one Las Vegas Summer League title.
Now he’s looking for a second.
After playing — and winning — Summer League with the Golden State Warriors last season, the former Iona and St. Benedict’s Prep product will suit up with the Toronto Raptors beginning in July, as first reported by SNY.tv.
“I’m looking to show my growth in learning the game at the pro level,” the 6-foot-2 Machado said by phone. “At the same time being able to show that I can run a team the way I was running a team in college. Play my game and try to win another Summer League championship.”
Machado, who went undrafted in 2012 but played that summer with the Houston Rockets, said the Raptors “were looking for a pass-first point guard and they were showing a lot of interest so that’s the route we decided to go.”
It has been a trying year-plus for Machado.
On March 28, 2013, his 61-year-old father, Luiz Machado, a livery cab driver, suffered a fatal heart attack while being arrested for taking illegal fares by Taxi and Limousine Commission officers at Kennedy Airport.
The New York Daily News reported that Luiz Machado was left in a gutter and without critical medical care for as long as 11 minutes, which triggered the Medical Examiner’s Office to rule the death a homicide.
“He helped a lot along my career along with everybody else in my family,” Machado said after a recent workout at the Nets facility in East Rutherford, N.J. “He was a big supporter and was somebody that always spoke to me about the game.”
Machado also missed three months last year after undergoing surgery for a sports hernia.
It was after that — when he was with the Santa Cruz Warriors of the D-League — that his father passed, and he returned to the East Coast for the arrangements.
He was later traded to the Idaho Stampede, but when that team failed to make the playoffs, Machado went to France and played with Asvel Basket, Tony Parker’s former team.
Now, after all that travel, he feels better physically and is excited about the next stop on his journey.
“I feel great now,” he said. “I feel a lot better than last year.”
