Often, the snow would become so thick, and heavy, that Tryggvi Hlinason couldn’t leave home for weeks.
Really, though, there was nowhere else for him to be.
In his Icelandic hometown of Þingeyjarsveit, 11 of the 917 residents, or so, lived on his family’s farm, where Hlinason spent so many days driving tractors and gathering hay and herding sheep.
Now, the 20-year-old, who only started playing basketball five years ago, is preparing for life in the NBA and declaring for the draft, ESPN reported.
The 7-foot-1, 260-pound center plays a traditional interior game and is still developing — resulting in few minutes for him in his first professional season in Europe, with Valencia, in Spain — but Hlinason earned international recognition last summer while averaging 16.1 points, 11.6 rebounds and 3.1 blocks in the Under-20 European Championship, in which he propelled the small nation to an unlikely top-eight finish.
Hlinason is projected to be a second-round pick, but still could withdraw his entry before June 11. Only one player in the country’s history has ever played in the NBA (Petur Gudmundsson).
Hlinason went to high school in the town of Akureyri in 2013 and planned to return to the farm four years later, after receiving education in the electric field. Looking for an athletic outlet, Hlinason’s uncle encouraged him to play for a local club team — the country has no high school basketball — and soon after received his first pair of basketball shoes.
By the fall, he could be face-to-face with Anthony Davis.