It wasn’t an Oh S**t This Is Gonna Happen moment anymore. My toughness, my defense, my energy, that’s something he needs on every team he coaches. I called him back, he basically told me unofficially he is about to be named the head coach of the Sacramento Kings, and he wants me to be a part of it. Remember the whole Sea of Red in Bilbao? The whole Manresa fans party during the Final Four? All the emotions as I won the MVP award and we were about to play the Basketball Champions League Final against Lenovo Tenerife? Well, I had my Oh S**t This Is Gonna Happen moment that morning. And then the Oh S**t This Is Gonna Happen moment. “Just finish strong,” he said, “and you’ll have a chance of accomplishing your dreams next year.”įrom then on, every time we talked there were better news. My agent came to visit, he said teams are talking, the NBA interest is very, very strong. It looks like a lot of NBA teams were watching, huh…īut I didn’t know it until the Copa del Rey in February. I said it before, Manresa Basketball, the most fun team to watch in all of Europe. I’m grateful for all of my teammates and everybody who played a part in putting that team together. If I had my stats and we were losing, I probably wouldn’t be writing this from the United States right now. We had the energy, we were fun to watch, and most importantly, we were winning. Winning the BCL MVP of the Season, being top three in the MVP vote in the Liga Endesa in Spain, all of that because we had a good team in Manresa. Clearly, it took a perfect season with BAXI Manresa to get me to the NBA. Just a year ago, after my season in Orleans in France, I wasn’t on anyone’s radar in the NBA. Still, the whole thing came out of nowhere. I talked to him a lot, he’s like my second father, and I told him it’s gonna happen. Ask the people I’m close to, there are so many messages I sent, letting them know it’s gonna happen.
Big down.īut get this… Throughout all these downs, I never stopped believing in myself. (When I left, I found out what he was saying about me to the media and I also found out he never actually watched my tape. I had to practice with these guys for six weeks, and three games into the French Second Division season, the coach told me that he didn’t need me.
#Big head basketball champions pro#
I put up 18.4 and 9.6 my senior year of college, but I had to go to Pro B, for several reasons.Īnd then, the biggest down of my career. Getting my first Pro B contract, I felt like that was a down, too. Getting the junior college scholarship? Sure, it was great, but people would consider going to junior college a down.ĭoing two years there, then going to a mid-major and redshirting the first year because I needed to develop more and get better? Also a down. Okay, I did get two responses, but they were like “keep going, good luck.” Nothing. Starting at 13? That’s a down already, because most of the kids I played against grew up with the ball in their hand.Įmailing hundreds of schools with my self-made highlights and not getting any responses? That’s a down. You think that was the only down of my career? LOLĪ nobody, remember? All the downs of my career, man, there’s a lot of them. This is what I’m gonna do, no matter what.” “I’m gonna play basketball professionally. And from then, I changed my whole perspective to: The coach said some things that just disappointed me. Two years later, I got cut, the last cut to be made to go to the national tournament of my state team. I never picked up a basketball for real until I was 13. Then at 13, I moved back to Australia and started playing basketball.īefore that, I only watched it, because of LeBron. Growing up, it was all about watching football and wrestling. Then the Portuguese Ronaldo came along and he became my favorite player. The streets will never forget Jay Jay Okocha 🤩 #PL icon joined #OnThisDay in 2002 /zualgUS22x Mr So Good They Named Him Twice – Google him, thank me later. I’m from Nigeria, soccer, or football, that’s what we were grew up on, what we loved. One day, when it all comes together and I have my own brand, that could be my motto, my catchphrase.Ī nobody, because basketball wasn’t really on the menu when I was a kid.
I played it cool, but in my head, I was like “Oooh! That’s FIRE! I’m gonna use that for Instagram caption one day.” I sat on it, let it marinate, and eventually I realized this was bigger than just some IG caption.
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