On Sunday, Trae Golden was attacking the rim during a home game for Bahcesehir Koleji, his club in Turkey’s top-tier Basketball Super League, when the 28-year-old shooting guard lost his footing and fell to the floor. As he lay there, two fellow Bahcesehir players instinctively hustled over to help him up, extending their arms and offering their hands.
It was the sort of ordinary interaction that Golden had experienced countless times in his career, which has wound through Finland, Cyprus, France and Russia following NCAA stops at Tennessee and Georgia Tech—and never with so much as a second thought.