How Ky Bowman went from an Alabama football offer to the...

LAS VEGAS — In mid-May, when Ky Bowman arrived at his only draft-combine interview, he expected a quick process: handshakes, generic basketball questions, goodbyes.

What he got was a personal conversation that left him teary-eyed. For more than 30 minutes, Bowman told Warriors officials about his two biggest motivations: an older brother whose mistakes quashed a promising athletic career, and a mother who took days off from her jobs at Subway and Walmart to drive Bowman 2½ hours one way to AAU practice.

“It was pretty emotional,” Bowman said of his interview with Golden State. “Just talking about my love for my family, it just got me.”

When Bowman went undrafted last month, Warriors general manager Bob Myers knew Golden State needed him on the roster. The passion in Bowman’s voice that afternoon in Chicago had told Myers all he needed to know.

An explosive point guard who can score in a variety of ways and defend multiple positions, Bowman, 22, knows he faces long odds of carving out an NBA niche. Because he is on a two-way contract, he will spend up to 45 days with Golden State and the rest of the season with its G League affiliate in Santa Cruz.

But if Bowman has learned anything the past four years, it’s that all he needs is an opportunity. Fresh off earning All-ACC honors as a junior last season at Boston College, Bowman has a chance to help back up Stephen Curry.

This is what Ky’s big brother, Michael, had in mind when he sat in county jail in February 2015 and encouraged Ky — a high three-star recruit at wide receiver — to focus on basketball. Less than a year earlier, Michael had committed to play wide receiver at South Carolina. But after two arrests for larceny, his football offers disappeared, leaving him to hope his younger brother wouldn’t have to live with regrets.

Ky liked football, in which his production led to a list of high-profile scholarship offers, including Alabama, but he loved basketball. With his family unable to afford college, and East Carolina as his only Division I basketball offer, he committed to a full-ride on North Carolina’s football team in hopes of also walking onto the basketball team.

Ky knew that he’d eventually need to pick a sport, and the football scholarship wouldn’t leave him much of a choice.

While video chatting with Ky in that holding cell in New Bern, N.C., Michael said, “Play the sport you love. Don’t play for others.” Michael was only two years older than Ky, but he had been like a father to Ky since their dad died suddenly 10 years earlier. “He’s never led me astray before,” Ky told himself, “so why would he start now?”

Ky de-committed from North Carolina and left a voicemail for East Carolina head men’s basketball coach Jeff Lebo, who had offered Ky months earlier. When weeks passed without a call back from Lebo, Ky turned his focus to earning other scholarships, a tricky proposition for an incoming high school senior who had been largely ignored because of his football plans.

That summer, Bowman’s mother, Lauretha Prichard, finished her shift at Walmart each Friday night before driving Bowman almost three hours from their Havelock, N.C., home to Raleigh for practice with a John Wall-sponsored AAU team. Ky knew that, by staying with him the entire weekend in Raleigh, Prichard was missing two hourly wages.

Her sacrifice helped Bowman land offers from Boston College, Cincinnati, Missouri and Cal, among others, within just a few months. After averaging 17.6 points, 6.8 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game as a sophomore with the Eagles, Bowman considered entering the NBA draft, only for his mom to convince him to get closer to earning his degree.

Bowman was widely projected as an early- to mid-second round pick in last month’s draft. When teams called during the second round offering him a two-way contract, he declined, opting to evaluate his options as an undrafted free agent. In summer league with the Warriors, Bowman — more scorer than facilitator at Boston College — is working on the decisions and passes required of an NBA point guard.

“You definitely see some explosiveness,” Warriors summer-league head coach Aaron Miles said. “You see that on the defensive end, he scraps. That’s one thing you’ve got to love about him. He’s quick, puts pressure on the opposing players. He has an ability to get to certain spots.

“I’m going to continue working with him on reading the game, but he’s getting better. I really like him.”

Bowman will spend much of his rookie season with Santa Cruz, which might feel like a failure to many prospects who declared early for the draft. But to Bowman, the G League is better than the NFL.

He can support his family without having to wonder what would have happened had he stuck with basketball.

“Just hearing my story, I think the Warriors understand why I do the things that I do — how hard that I work, the effort that I put in each day, each night,” Bowman said. “That’s not going to change.”

Connor Letourneau is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cletourneau@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Con_Chron