After a winding college career and a strong year at Missouri, D’Moi Hodge is NBA bound.
The 6-foot-4 guard went unselected in the 2023 NBA Draft on Thursday, but signed a two-way contract with the Los Angeles Lakers shortly after, as first reported by Dan Woike of the Los Angeles Times.
After graduating high school, the Tortola, British Virgin Islands native attended a prep school in Georgia and later joined New Mexico Junior College. The next year, he transferred to State College of Florida where he spent the next two seasons. Hodge committed to head coach Dennis Gates at Cleveland State and joined the team in the 2020-21 season, helping the Vikings win the Horizon League tournament championship and earn an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. Cleveland State won its conference regular season title in 2022, with Hodge receiving All-Horizon League First Team and Defensive Player of the Year honors.
Gates was hired by Missouri ahead of the 2022-23 season and Hodge followed him soon after. The fifth-year senior made an immediate impact with the Tigers, breaking the program’s single-season record with 91 steals. Hodge was also the team’s most prolific shooter, going 100-250 from beyond the arc and averaging 14.7 points per game.
Hodge took part in a predraft workout for Los Angeles on June 8 and now joins a Lakers team that went 43-39 last season and reached the Western Conference Finals in the NBA playoffs. He'll take a similar path in the league as fellow former Tiger guard Dru Smith, who's signed two-way deals with the Miami Heat and Brooklyn Nets so far in his career.
With Hodge's signing and Kobe Brown being drafted by the Clippers with the 30th pick on Thursday, Gates now has two players he's sent to the NBA after just his first season with Missouri.
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