Jazz President Randy Digby announced in a press conference last Monday that their young team has decided to go even younger. Digby then announced that they will be signing 5-year-old JP Gibson for a day as their center guard.
JP is the youngest and the shortest basketball player ever to set foot on court as a team member.
Not so long after signing his one-day contract with the team (JP received his jersey and he went to the court with his team for the day's game. JP did took his post seriously as he diligently attended the Jazz's pre-game warm up exercises.
The pint-sized player who wore the team's number 1 jersey gained at least a couple of standing ovations - the first one came right when he walked onto the court and the second one after he scored a slam dunk with center Rudy Gobert giving him a "lift".
Joining the team for the annual preseason intra-squad scrimmage at the Energy Solutions Arena in Salt Lake City is a JP's dream that is made come true by the Utah Jazz and the Anything Can Be Project.
Anything Can Be is a project that aims to help young cancer patients such like JP to make their dreams come true. Aside from the dream-granting aspect of the project, they also aim to raise awareness on pediatric cancer whilst raising hope among families who have little ones that battle cancer or has lost a little one to the disease.
JP was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in 2012 has bee battling the disease since. ALL is a condition where in the bone marrow overproduce lymphoblasts or white blood cells. This overproduction messes up with the production of erythrocytes (red blood cells) and thrombocytes (platelets). The white blood cells then infiltrate the organs causing damage.
In the US, around 6,000 cases of ALL is reported every year and 80% of these are children.
