NBA players are used to being before big crowds and in front of world-famous people. But when Nets scout Tiago Splitter was on a riser in Rome last weekend, with 15,000 looking on, this was different.
This was meeting the pope.
Splitter — hired by the Nets in April as a pro scout, with added duties for player development — may not be Catholic, but he’s Christian. And for the 33-year-old Brazilian, he may live three times that long and never have another experience like meeting Pope Francis and gifting him a Nets basketball.
“It was a gift for him.