In the mid-2000's Nigeria wasn't that good at basketball at the national level. Angola & Senegal were the teams that dominated. Now we have the top team on the continent. So what happened? What changed? How did we go from an after-ran to having the top team in African basketball?

What was the masterplan? Was there a strategic plan? What structures were put in place to improve? What happened at the grassroots? Did the training change? Was there any investment from the government? Did the coaching change?

In typical fashion, good things that happen in Nigeria happen by accident, not by design. Happens that a naija kids who grew up in the states and were doing great in basketball (but weren't good enough to play for the US) needed a country to play for, and Nigeria was there

So we started having guys like Ike Diogu, Al-Farouq Aminu and Ime Udoka participate to get the chance to play in the Olympics. Those guys all trained in the US system & are dominating continental basketball. So by pure chance, Nigeria has lucked out on a pipeline of elite talent

There's a new generation of naija ballers who are even better than the guys I mentioned. The naija team is going to be very, very scary. The NBA is going to be 5-10% Nigerian in the next 5 years. You can't discount the effect that will have on Nigerian basketball

This is just another reason why I believe the diaspora is so key for Nigeria. It takes only a handful of people with the right talent and experiences to build systems and programs that work, but those systems can have a profound effect on millions of people. Selah