The NBA today announced the structure and format for the 2020-21 season, which will include a Play-In Tournament to determine the teams that will fill the seventh and eighth playoff seeds in each conference.
Precious Achiuwa and Udoka Azubuike are the two who were born in Nigeria. If both are selected in the top 30, it would be the first time that two players from Nigeria are selected in the first round of the same NBA Draft.
Along with Achiuwa and Azubuike, there are also Onyeka Okongwu, Isaac Okoro, Zeke Nnaji, Daniel Oturu, and Jordan Nwora on the cards.
“I think it’s big,” Achiuwa said in a pre-Draft Zoom call with ESPN.
“It just shows there’s a big talent culture in Nigeria when it comes to basketball, athleticism and athletes as a whole in general.
“It speaks to how competitive we are and our willingness to be better in whatever we do.”
It is a testament both to how far the Nigerian community in the USA has come, and how much basketball has grown back home.
In 1984, when Akeem Olajuwon was drafted number one overall to the NBA — ahead of even Michael Jordan — he was the lone Nigerian, nay African, in that Draft Class.
It took another 10 years before the NBA drafted another player of Nigerian descent when the New Jersey Nets picked up Yinka Dare from George Washington, and another four years before Michael Olowokandi was drafted number one overall by the LA Clippers.
Thirty six years on from that first, pivotal draft, the 2020 NBA Draft Class — like the 2020 NFL Draft Class before it — boasts the highest number of players of Nigerian origin.
Nwora already represents Nigeria senior men’s basketball team. Oturu’s father, Francis, played table tennis for Nigeria.
Okongwu is in the conversation for not just for the top 5 pick, but could well rival James Wiseman, Lamelo Ball, and Anthony Edwards for the number one overall pick, and he is not shy about it.
“I feel like I’m higher than all of them,” he told ESPN. “I just do all the little things well. I just play basketball. I know how to win.”
Also projected to be a high pick is Isaac Okoro, the 6’6 shooting guard/small forward from Auburn.
All told, there are more than 30 current and former NBA players with Nigerian roots, including the likes of Andre Iguodala, Victor Oladipo, Bam Adebayo, and the Antetokounmpo brothers, led of course by legendary Hall of Famer Olajuwon.
Achiuwa said that it is a trend the current class will seek to carry on: “I think we have the opportunity to keep that legacy going, especially that Nigerian representation in the NBA.”
Below is the list of Players of Nigerian decent who will be participating in the 2020-21 season:
Nigeria is well represented in this year’s draft class! 🇳🇬
Born in Nigeria:
Precious Achiuwa
Udoka Azubuike
Parents from Nigeria:
Isaac Okoro
Onyeka Okongwu
Daniel Oturu
Father from Nigeria:
Zeke Nnaji
Desmond Bane
Jordan Nwora
