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Wednesday’s Hot Clicks: This NBA Draft Prospect Truly Came Out of Nowhere

If you’re new here, Hot Clicks is everything you need to know in the world of sports and pop culture, ready for you to read right when you get to your desk in the morning.

I’ll be pulling for this guy tomorrow night

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The later rounds of the NBA draft are full of names you’ve never heard before. If you’ve never heard of Tryggvi Hlinason, you’re certainly not alone. Yahoo Sports has the story of how this guy went from picking up basketball to stay in shape to being a possible NBA draft pick

Hlinason comes a part of Iceland that’s remote even by Icelandic standards. On his parents’ sheep farm, the nearest house was more than five miles away. It takes an hour to get to the closest grocery store. Heavy snowfall would trap the family at the farm for weeks at a time. 

Hlinason was 16 by the time he saw five-on-five basketball for the first time, but he stands over seven feet tall and took to the game quickly, so he landed a deal with a top team in Spain. Now he’s hoping (not unreasonably!) that an NBA team will take a chance on him in the back half of the second round to stash him in Europe for a year or two while he develops. 

At least it was just a Yuengling

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsTKSieVwmY]

Manny Piña doesn’t just play for a team called the Brewers—he also apparently has an emotional connection to beer. When a Pirates fan failed to catch a foul ball and had his tall boy obliterated in the process, Piña could barely stand to watch. I hope someone updated Piña with the information that the can was still partly full. 

I didn’t know it was possible to make Ovi even more ugly

After the Capitals beat the Penguins in the playoffs for the first time since 1994, one very excited Caps fan sent the following tweet. 

And sure enough, the Capitals did win and so our anonymous hero did follow through and tattoo Alex Ovechkin’s ugly mug right on his ass cheek. 

Jeez, I know Ovi isn’t the most handsome guy, but couldn’t the artist have been a little kinder? It looks like he’s wearing a Scream mask. 

Bits & Pieces

Here’s where to buy the hats NBA draft picks will wear tomorrow night. ... An Australian artist buried himself under a busy street for three days. Here’s what he said when he was dug up. ... New York is close to legalizing beer ice cream. ... A man in Paraguay showed up at his own wake. ... Some burglars in Georgia pulled off a Mission Impossible-style heist where they never touched the floor. ... This political reporter’s reaction to the Capitals coach’s resignation was captured live on camera, unbeknownst to her. ... A 98-year-old ran up Mount Washington and beat his time from last year

Richard Sherman, travel guide

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Richard Sherman is new in San Francisco and hasn’t yet found a place to stay on a long-term basis, so he’s been hotel hopping. He’s also been reviewing the rooms on the HotelTonight app. So if you’re ever in the Bay Area and need a place to crash, maybe just see which hotels Richard Sherman likes. Hopefully you make close enough to an NFL player’s salary to take him up on his recommendations. 

The Creed sequel has a poster and a release date

This heat is brutal

A little better than Buffalo Wild Wings

I love Dirk so much

I was playing Fortnite when I saw this

This youth lacrosse coach spurred his team to victory with a rousing speech about video games.

A man of many talents

One of the reasons Pirates pitcher Steven Brault went to Regis University, a small Catholic school in Denver with a D-II athletics program, is that they would let him study vocal performance and play baseball. He showed before last night’s game why that was a good idea. 

All fans should be like World Cup fans

Senegalese fans pick up trash after World Cup match against Poland from r/soccer

Race car driver saved by his dad after crash

A good song

Email dan.gartland@simail.com with any feedback or ping me on Twitter. Click here for previous editions of Hot Clicks. Visit our Extra Mustard page throughout each day for more offbeat sports stories.