Vietnamese-origin player joins Zenit Saint Petersburg

A star of Vietnamese descent stands before a great opportunity to shine in Russia.

American basketball player of Vietnamese descent - Johnny Juzang has officially found a new home after being waived by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Accordingly, Juzang has signed a contract with Zenit Saint Petersburg (a team competing in the VTB United League in Russia). The contract between the two parties is valid until the end of the 2025-2026 season.

Juzang, 24 years old, was born in Los Angeles to an American father and a Vietnamese mother. He played three years of college basketball, including one season at Kentucky before transferring to UCLA, where he had two standout years. Although not selected in the 2022 NBA Draft, he still found an opportunity to pursue his professional dream by signing a two-way contract with the Utah Jazz.

After spending his first two seasons splitting time between the Utah Jazz and the Salt Lake City Stars in the G League, Juzang was awarded a standard multi-year contract in August 2024. However, only the first season of this deal was guaranteed. By June 2025, Utah decided to waive the Vietnamese-American guard.

Not long after, he signed an Exhibit 10 contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves to participate in training camp and impressed enough to be elevated to a two-way contract before the start of the season.

However, Juzang's playing opportunities with the Timberwolves were quite limited. He appeared in only 21 games and was not used in the remaining 29, primarily seeing action in late-game situations when the outcome was already decided. In total, Juzang played only 88 minutes this season and only once played more than 10 minutes in a single game.

Averaging across his four NBA seasons, Juzang has played in 123 games, averaging 16 minutes per game, scoring 6.9 points and grabbing 2.2 rebounds with shooting splits of 42.1% from the field, 35.8% from three-point range, and 78.5% from the free-throw line.

Joining Zenit Saint Petersburg marks the first time Johnny Juzang will play outside the United States. This is seen as an opportunity for him to seek more playing time and revitalize his career in the competitive, high-quality environment of European basketball.