Ham Ji-hoon (born December 11, 1984) is a South Korean professional basketball player. He plays for Ulsan Hyundai Mobis Phoebus in the

Korean Basketball League The Korean Basketball League (KBL; ) is a professional men's basketball league in South Korea which was established in 1997. The league consists of ten teams and each team plays a total of 54 games (27 home and 27 away) in the regular season. H ...

and is the club's captain and longest-serving player after Yang Dong-geun.

Early life and college career

Ham attended Kyungbock High School and played as a forward before being converted into a center at Chung-Ang University. Although his height, at just under 200 cm, is not considered tall for a center even by KBL standards, he stood out for his physicality. Together with fellow seniors future MVP winners Park Sang-oh and Yoon Ho-young and freshman Oh Se-keun, they won the MBC Cup two years in a row, breaking Yonsei University's stranglehold and Ham was named tournament MVP of the 2006 edition. They also won the 2007 National Basketball Festival (Korean: 농구대잔치) competition, the main collegiate competition of that time.

Professional career

Having been overshadowed by his Chung-Ang teammates, Ham mostly flew under the radar and it was reflected in his draft ranking. He was drafted tenth overall at the 2007 rookie draft by Ulsan Mobis Phoebus. Under

Yoo Jae-hak Yoo Jae-hak (born 20 March 1963) is a South Korean basketball coach, formerly for Ulsan Mobis Phoebus and the Korean national team, which participated at the 2014 FIBA Basketball World Cup. He is currently Ulsan’s general manager. He also compe ...

, he developed a reputation as a "blue worker", a Konglish corruption of the term ''

blue-collar worker A blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involving manufacturing, warehousing, mining, excavation, electricity generation and powe ...

'' and a colloquialism in domestic basketball used to describe an unflashy yet essential player often tasked with defending the post or the more physical aspects of the team strategy. By his second season, he had played in all five positions. Ham enlisted for

mandatory military service Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day un ...

in April 2010 and was assigned the

Korea Armed Forces Athletic Corps Korea Armed Forces Athletic Corps (), commonly known as the Sangmu (), is the sports division of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces. Its headquarters are located in Mungyeong, Gyeongsangbuk-do. It was founded in 1984 by the integration of the ath ...

's Sangmu team. He was discharged in February 2012. After Yang Dong-geun's retirement, Ham became the team captain and their longest-serving player. He reached two career benchmarks within days of each other during the 2021–21 season: scoring 7,000 points and recording 2,400 assists.

Personal life

Ham married his girlfriend of six years in April 2012. They have two sons.

References

External links

Career Statistics
from the

website {{DEFAULTSORT:Ham, Ji-hoon 1984 births Living people Asian Games silver medalists for South Korea Basketball players at the 2010 Asian Games Chung-Ang University alumni Korean Basketball League players Kyungbock High School alumni Medalists at the 2010 Asian Games Power forwards (basketball) South Korean men's basketball players Ulsan Hyundai Mobis Phoebus players