Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement - scroll for more content
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Abby Jones: Masai Ujiri said he wants to bring calmness to the position and was asked about the Luka Dončić trade. “We have a saying in Africa, we say, ‘when kings go, kings come’ and a king went [Luka] and we have a little prince [Cooper Flagg] here now. He’s turning into a king and I think we have to start thinking that way.”
When asked about the NBA not having any African American NBA ownership, Durant had a more global and diverse point of view. “I just hope Black wealth around the world changes, not just in the [NBA],” Durant said. “I want to see more African Americans become hundred-millionaires, billionaires. I just think around the world there should be more representation of Black Americans that obtain wealth. And of course, it could trickle down to every industry. There could be more. Overall, that is something we need to keep growing as Black Americans.”
While Hasheem Thabeet has often been viewed as an NBA bust for his lackluster and short career, in Africa — more specifically his native Tanzania — he is seen as a pioneer, legend and role model. Back on “the continent,” Thabeet, the No. 2 pick in the 2009 NBA draft — selected ahead of such stars as James Harden, Stephen Curry and DeMar DeRozan — is still playing in the Basketball Africa League. “I wish I could have played longer [in the NBA],” Thabeet, 39, told Andscape in a phone call from Pretoria, South Africa. “Yes. It didn’t happen. So what? Life goes on. You got to keep it moving. I look at it as it was another step for me to learn something.”
Thabeet’s NBA career, however, spanned a mere five seasons as he struggled to adapt, averaging 2.2 points, 2.7 rebounds and 0.8 blocks per game in 224 contests. After last playing in the NBA for the Oklahoma City Thunder during the 2013-14 season, Thabeet bounced around in the G League, Japan, Taiwan, China and now Tanzania. “I was drafted so high, but I feel like I wasn’t the first priority, because you see these days you just don’t send a No. 2 [pick] to the G League,” Thabeet said. “So, I feel like there was so many things that happened to me where I was vulnerable. I didn’t know how to react, how to handle the situation. So, people can say whatever they want to say. It’s an opinion world these days. Everybody has their opinion. People who never played or played sports [on that level], they can say whatever they want to say. That is me now looking at it right now as a man.
“But as a young boy, of course I went through so much. So much frustration with myself. Frustration with the teams. There was a time where I felt like there was a breaking point. I stopped believing. You know what? I came from a very different world. I can’t put the burden on myself through this sport. I happened to fall in love with basketball. I got to keep it going. I can’t be like, ‘Oh, this is the guy who didn’t make it in the NBA and he quit in life.’ I’m different. I’m from a very different world.”
Advertisement
Thabeet, Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Olowokandi and Joel Embiid are the only Africans selected in the top three picks in NBA draft history. Thabeet is also the only East African to play in the NBA. “I was very inspired by the [African] guys who played before me,” Thabeet said. “Rest in peace to the great Dikembe Mutombo and many more that I’ve met in settings like Basketball Without Borders, Giants of Africa with Masai [Ujiri], NBA Africa with Amadou [Fall]. I’ll go to these meetings and then they look at me like, ‘Man, you made it.’ And then I’m like, ‘Man, what if I played in the NBA for 20 years? Then these kids will think I’m a basketball god with what I’ve done just a few years in the pros.’ But they’re looking at me [positively]? I got to keep going.”
The National Basketball Association, in its latest move to aggressively grow overseas, will soon begin selling franchises for its league in Africa, Commissioner Adam Silver said. The NBA, which created its Basketball Africa League in 2019 and played its first season two years later, aims to sell 12 new teams alongside an opportunity to build home arenas for those franchises, Silver said last week at the Bloomberg Philanthropies Global Forum in New York.
Adam Silver imagined a future midseason “NBA Cup” in Europe that could essentially create a worldwide “confederation” of teams from multiple continents, extending possibly to clubs from NBA Africa. “You could imagine teams from Europe, potentially Africa, competing in that tournament,” Silver said. “You possibly could see teams coming into our playoffs, top seeds from other leagues. But over time, I think, for example, certainly in Europe as plane travel gets faster… I’m reading all the time about more opportunities in aviation. When I think of the flight from New York to LA for example, there’s no reason if we had four teams in Europe, you couldn’t travel, play the Knicks or Nets, travel to London, play three, four times in Europe, come back home. So I think it’s very doable in our league."
With NBA Europe virtually imminent, as JP Morgan and the Raine Group currently try to set the market price for franchises, Silver again said the rationale, from a business perspective, is the lack of basketball commercialization overseas. “From a commercial standpoint, we haven’t seen the kind of development you’ve seen, particularly in the United States,” he said at the Bloomberg Global Forum. “There are not many state-of-the-art arenas in Europe. It’s like even for those who were over in Paris last summer for the Olympics, we had fantastic basketball competition in the Bercy Arena in Paris. They revitalized it to a certain extent for the Olympics. But if you’re in the industry, everything seems fine if you’re in the seats and watching the competition on the floor, but it doesn’t have the suites, the restaurants, the back of house room to do larger events”
Mike Vorkunov: What could NBA ultimately do with the new league it's building in Europe? Adam Silver: "We have something we call the NBA Cup... You could imagine teams in Europe, potentially Africa, competing in that tournament. You possibly could see teams coming into our playoffs, top seeds from other leagues."
Advertisement
A new $26 million sports-themed hotel in Rwanda that aims to tap into the country’s growing hospitality market will be a template for expanding other sporting businesses across Africa, the former National Basketball Association executive that spearheaded the project told Semafor. Masai Ujiri, former vice president of NBA franchise Toronto Raptors and a retired basketball player, plans to build a collection of hotels in Africa following the opening of Zaria Court, his company’s first hotel property, in the Rwandan capital Kigali in July.
Kawhi Leonard spent four days in Rwanda, beginning on August 3, with a focus on youth development and a high-level conversation with President Paul Kagame about investing in education and sports across the country. The two met privately for roughly two hours in Kigali to discuss ways athletics can open doors for young people, then reconnected later at a Giants of Africa camp, where Kagame addressed the players and praised Leonard for making the trip.
While in Kigali, Leonard unveiled a new outdoor basketball court he designed at St. Ignatius School as part of Giants of Africa’s “Built Within” initiative, which aims to construct 100 courts across the continent. The court features messages drawn from Leonard’s childhood—“Play Hard, Have Fun,” “You Are Stronger Than You Think,” and “Be Great”—and color choices inspired by his middle and high school alma maters. The goal is to give thousands of local kids a place to play and a daily reminder to keep going.