Rise of the Africans - The Future is Now

    I watch basketball. So, I think about the game: where has it been, where is it now, where is it going?

    What do I see? I see more diversity than ever before. We always have been interested in people of height, the big men (and women), in this sport that values length and reach. Speed and explosiveness are great, because smaller players and shooters and passers and stealers have always thrived in the game at all levels. But we need the big guys. Those dudes fill up the middle and the biggest factors boil down to who can dominate in the paint. Sure, there has been a trend for shooting more three pointers now, and the run and gun has always been a potential tactic based on speed, but the size helps and matters.

    Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson were all U.S. guys. All could do everything. Bron Bron is still doing everything as I write this in 2023. They were all big and tall. Jordan was 6'6", but played like he was 7'2".

    All these greats were born and bred in the United States. And, they were not centers. North Carolina, Italy/Philadelphia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan. Kobe was raised in Europe some because his dad (American) had played over there. 

    Centers and power forwards have always been huge (literally), integral parts of the game. You need defense, and the biggest, longest players provide it. On offense it is an amazing bonus when the big guys can do that, too. Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. They won multiple rings with others surrounding them. Others that did the things to keep the whole enterprise going. Passing, shooting, rebounding, defending. A big guy in the middle makes your team much more capable of making it all work. If he shoots, and moves well, even more so.

    When I was in middle school in the early 1980s there was a dominant African-born player named Hakeem Olajuwon who could do everything. He did do everything except shoot long range. His shooting was great, his footwork was amazing, his defense was fierce. He could pass. He could win. He won. An all-time great player, who hailed from Nigeria. Even in the 1970s there were jokes or rumors that African-born players would warm to the game of basketball and become dominant, a lot of that likely due to racial tropes and stereotypes. However, not a ton of these talents developed into true super-stars for the next decades. Manute Bol was super tall, and some others from some countries in Africa made names, in particular Dikembe Mutombo, but in numbers Africans never came into force as they were thought to be as possible talent, as intimated in a Kevin Bacon film "The Air Up There", back in the mid 1980s. 

    France and a few other countries had some great African-born talent, but it never really materialized. Europe provided more players, like Dirk Nowitski from Germany, Sabonis from Lithuania, Smits from Holland, or Petrovic from Yugoslavia.

    

    Where were all the great African athletes? 

    Well, now deep into our 21st century, there are a plethora of African-born talented guys floating across the college and pro-games. Some come from Europe, like Antetokounmpo (Greece), but more and more are coming from Congo, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Mali, all parts of the continent. Sudan, Gabon, likely Angola. A country that had a player famously punked by Charles Barkley back in the 1992 Olympics.

    Now we have many, on almost every team in the NBA. College is strewn with many Africans; we sometimes struggle to pronounce their names, but they keep coming. 

    One of my favorite is OG Anunoby, who played for IU, did high school in Missouri, but came from Nigeria. His teammate is even better: Pascal Siakam. They keep coming, big and small. 

    The game has evolved, and now the game is an international who's who of nations everywhere. Not to mention Latin America and Asia.

    But I see it more than ever in the college game. African men (and maybe some women?) are part of the game, and it will only increase.

    Vivre la guerre du c'est esport. Long live the game of speed, size, talent, and courage.

    Oh, the thing about this summer NBA draft? Number one will be a large, lanky, talented, skinny, but super-strong African-born guy from France. He is 7'3" and will make some team pretty good. Or even great. Like the Rockets became with Hakeem Olajuwon a generation ago.