Several NBA mock drafts unanimously projected Kyle Filipowski to be selected in the first round, but the former Duke center was left feeling dejected after going undrafted on the first day of the NBA Draft 2024.
He was eventually selected in the second round as a no. 32 selection by the Utah Jazz.
Players' families are usually there to support them for the next stage of their basketball career, but Filipowski's was different.
Instead, he was all alone with his girlfriend.
Being with a partner on your big day should not be questioned, but then fans dug into Filipowski's relationship details, and that's when everything became intriguing.
Curious fans were sent down the rabbit hole.
He and his girlfriend, Caitlin Hutchinson, have a considerable age gap. They have been dating since he was in high school.
Filipowski is only 20, while Hutchinson is 28, prompting people to call their relationship "grooming," with Filipowski the victim.
Filipowski is estranged from his family
The internet instantly feasted on Filipowski's relationship, and his family chimed in to support most people's unfavorable views about their age gap.
His mother, Becky, turned to X to expose how the two's romantic relationship started.
She said that Hutchinson was only there for the potential money her son would be making and that the endgame for her was to get married to Kyle.
His brother Daniel commented that Kyle's story was kept a secret and that Duke was part of it.
He even mentioned Mormon, or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as an entity that groomed his younger brother into becoming part of the church.
For the same reason, fans found it interesting that he was drafted by Utah, the center of the Mormon church.
Kyle Filipowski's Girlfriend's background
A little research on Ms. Hutchinson's background makes everything suspicious. She entered undergrad in 2015 when Filipowski was only 11 years old.
Her LinkedIn profile, which is now deleted, says she graduated from the University of Alabama in 2018 and took up a Masters in Business Administration at the LSU Shreveport.
They allegedly met when he was only 14 and she was 22.
In New York, where Filipowski went to high school, it is prohibited for adults to have a sexual relationship with 17-year-old teens. They commit child grooming if they "intentionally persuade, induce, entice, or coerce a child under 18 years to engage in or otherwise be involved in conduct that would either be an offense categorized as public indecency or involve sexual activity."
With Filipowski entering the NBA, things could get more challenging for him and his girlfriend due to intense media scrutiny of his professional and personal life.
Is he ready for this? Or will his girlfriend take over and answer everything for him?
Was the relationship appropriate or not?
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