His dad was a problem sleeper, and some of Shawn Dawson’s earliest memories are of waking in the middle of the night to find his father watching an NBA game on their television.

As early as 3 years old — and for years after — Dawson would watch them, too. Sitting alongside his father, a pro basketball player in Dawson’s native Israel, he began to learn the game he’d one day make his life.

“I didn’t distract him or make any problems,” Dawson said this week from New York City. “I would just sit there quietly and watch with him. Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to be an NBA player.”

Soon, that lifelong pursuit will lead him to New Orleans.

Dawson, a 6-foot-6 guard and 22-year-old up-and-comer in the Israeli Basketball Super League, will be in training camp with the Pelicans on a nonguaranteed contract. He’s scheduled to arrive in the city Sunday. The Pelicans open camp Sept. 24.

“Like, suddenly playing with the guys I’m seeing on TV, to look to the side and see Anthony Davis and look to the other side and see Tyreke Evans?” Dawson said. “I mean, it’s big. It’s a dream.”

Making the league is the goal. A training camp invite, though, is a significant step for Dawson, who never played organized American basketball until his stint with the Washington Wizards’ Summer League team last month.

And while there are no guarantees for Dawson, making it this close has been no small feat. Small forward Omri Casspi is a rotation player for the Kings, and point guard Gal Mekel played 35 games between 2013-15, including four with the Pelicans in December of 2014.

“It’s a super-big challenge,” said Daniel Hazan, Dawson’s agent. “You have to understand, in Israel there’s no courts where you can walk into a rec center and just start playing.”

The best chance to make it in Israeli basketball is through the junior leagues. Dawson, whose father, Joe, was an American with a 20-year pro career in Israel, came up through that system and made his debut in Israel’s BSL in 2012.

He averaged double-digit scoring in each of the past three seasons, helping raise his profile and land an invitation from the Wizards to play in last month’s Summer League, where he averaged 4.7 points in 14 minutes per game.

Pelicans' 2016-17 schedule released; see matchups, dates, national TV games A year ago, the NBA schedule reflected a view of the Pelicans as a franchise on the rise.

The Pelicans also offered a Summer League spot, and though Dawson chose to play with Washington, he opted to come to camp with New Orleans, a franchise he said has been in regular contact “for more than a year.”

Camp with the Pelicans presents the latest hurdle on Dawson’s track to the NBA.

New Orleans has 15 players on guaranteed contracts for 2016-17, meaning that unless it waives a player or makes a trade that returns fewer players than the Pelicans give up, there are no roster spots available.

“They explained the whole situation,” Dawson said. “I know that it’s a tough situation to get a contract when there’s 15 guaranteed already, but things happen. I believe in myself, and I feel like they like me. I know that they like me.”

Pelicans general manager Dell Demps has flown to Israel to see Dawson, Hazan said, and Dawson admired New Orleans’ up-front approach. Training camp with the Pelicans offers an opportunity to impress the rest of the league — or to make an impression on New Orleans for down the road.

Hazan compares Dawson — long, explosive and athletic — to the late Bryce Dejean-Jones, who was in camp with the Pelicans last year, signed with the club out of the NBA Development League in the season and then signed a partially guaranteed contract during the year. Dejean-Jones was shot and killed in Dallas in May.

“Bryce Dejean-Jones didn’t get time right away, but his play during training camp led him to that (in-season) call-up and ultimately to that contract that he signed,” Hazan said. “I think they’re a great organization. They have a knack for doing that.”

Dawson, though, hopes not to wait until midseason to impress the Pelicans.

He’s been training four times a day in New York, Hazan said, working to improve his jumper and to develop a toughness that Hazan said is more common in American players than Israelis.

It’s “really big,” Dawson said, to be this close to a league that has had so few Israeli players.

“All my basketball friends in Israel and some veterans that I got to know from the national team, they all tell me that this is a huge opportunity and not to let it slip away,” Dawson said. “Not everybody gets that chance, especially not from Israel.”

And though he’s had only a taste of American basketball, Dawson is confident he can make it his meal ticket. Despite his long odds with the Pelicans, he’s certain he can make an impression.

All those years of watching NBA games — first with his father, then on his own — taught him how to study the game, he said. Dawson picked up bits and pieces, he said, from “everybody from LeBron James to a player who comes on the court for five minutes.”

He’s been visiting family in the U.S. for years, but Summer League was his first on-court foray into American basketball, and Dawson admits the players there “intimidated” him at first.

“But after I started playing,” he said, “I saw that I’m better than most of them.”

Dawson’s Digits

Shawn Dawson will join the Pelicans for training camp on a nonguaranteed contract. A look at his numbers with Maccabi Rishon Lezion in the Israeli Basketball Super League:

Season PPG RPG APG FG PCT 3FG PCT

2012-13 3.8 1.7 0.4 40.0 23.7

2013-14 10.5 5.1 1.4 45.7 26.0

2014-15 14.6 5.9 2.1 48.4 34.2

2015-16 15.0 5.9 2.8 49.1 33.6

(Source: RealGM)