Center of the family
Magic backup center Biyombo is surrogate father to his 6 siblings
WINDERMERE — The Christmas spirit fills Bismack Biyombo’s home these days.
Ten red-and-white Santa Claus hats hang upsidedown above a fireplace in the grand foyer and will serve as stockings.
A tree decorated in multi-colored lights, round ornaments and tinsel sits nearby.
And, most important of all, the family members’ voices echo throughout the house.
This will be a special Christmas for Biyombo, the Orlando Magic’s reserve center who will see more playing time now as the team copes with a flurry of injuries. For the first time since 2008, when he left his childhood home in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to start a basketball career abroad, he will spend Christmas Eve and Christmas with all six of his siblings: brothers Billy, Biska and Bikim and sisters Bimeline, Bikeline and Bimela.
“I think it’s going to be so special,” said Biska, a 21-year-old soccer player who graduated from Montverde Academy and now attends Trinidad State Junior College in southern Colorado.
Bismack Biyombo’s journey to the NBA is a tale of perseverance — he grew up poor and walked up to an hour each day to attend school — but his story also revolves around family.
His parents gave him the freedom to leave his home country to build a new life for himself, and now Biyombo is giving his brothers and sisters the same opportunity. All six of his siblings attend boarding schools or colleges in the United States. Not only does Biyombo pay their tuition and their room-and-board, but he also serves as their surrogate father. They rely on him whenever they need advice, help or an emotional support. Even when he’s on the road playing for the Magic, he’s always just a text message or a phone call away, ready to assist whenever he’s needed.
“He’s just a great brother,” said Bimeline, who is 18 and is interested in becoming a nurse. “He’s just so great in everything. I don’t know how to thank him, but I’m blessed to have him in my life. I love him so much.”
Bismack is 25 years old — the oldest of François and Françoise Biyombo’s seven children. Years ago, when Bismack’s parents were away from their home working, they would put Bismack in charge.
Now, about a decade since he last baby-sat his siblings back home, Bismack feels a greater responsibility. He doesn’t have kids of his own, but he regards himself as a second dad to Billy, Biska, Bikim, Bimeline, Bikeline and Bimela.
“To me, it doesn’t get any better than this,” Bismack said. “Every time I go to bed, I feel fulfilled. It’s great. Quite frankly, it’s a great feeling to work with. You see the little sisters growing up. You see the little brother becoming a man. It’s great.”
He reveals his paternal point of view through the words he sometimes uses to describe his youngest siblings; he occasionally refers to them as his “little ones.”
He glows whenever he discusses his brothers’ and sisters’ accomplishments. He smiled when he mentioned how 23-year-old Billy, a student at St. Leo University, wants to major in business management. Bismack nodded his head when he described how well Bimeline, Bikeline and Bimela have learned English since they arrived in the U.S. about a year and a half ago and started attending Mountain Mission School in southwest Virginia.
Affording his siblings’ tuitions and paying for their expenses is the easy part. In July 2016, the Magic signed him to a four-year contract worth $17 million each season.
Being a surrogate parent and managing the interpersonal dynamics of a family has been more difficult. One of the biggest lessons he’s learned, he said, is he must distribute his love and guidance evenly to all six of his siblings. He cannot play favorites or appear to play favorites.
Biyombo has benefitted from his parents’ examples.
When Biyombo’s paternal grandparents died, Biyombo’s father — the eldest child in his family — put siblings through school, too.
During Christmases back home, Biyombo said, his parents always had enough food to feed their children. But rather than having leftovers, they would give any excess food to strangers who needed it.
“I think it goes from generation to generation,” Billy said. “Seeing our dad as a role model had an impact on Bismack’s career as well as [on] him outside of the court. Taking care of us, it pretty much goes back to what my dad did for his brothers and sisters. I think that situation had a lot of impact on Bismack as a person.”
François and Françoise Biyombo still live in the same home where they raised their seven children. Bismack has offered to buy them a house, but his parents politely declined.
As a child, Bismack always has had at least one obvious gift, aside from his height and his tenacity on the basketball court: the gift of focus. Growing up in Lubumbashi, a mining city of about 2 million people, he seemed to have an uncommon level of determination. When he was 16, he was offered a basketball contract in Qatar. But he and friends were detained in a neighboring country because he lacked the necessary documentation. Biyombo eventually ended up in Yemen, and he ultimately was discovered by an influential coach. Beginning in 2009, he played two seasons professionally in Spain.
He spent his first four NBA seasons with the Charlotte Bobcats, but he never met the expectations that came with being the seventh overall pick in the 2011 NBA Draft.
His salary allowed him to bring his three brothers to the U.S. They moved here during Biyombo’s second season with the Bobcats.
His sisters followed last year.
Biyombo helps other people outside of his family, too. Working through his non-profit foundation, which his parents run, he’s paid the U.S. tuitions for children who grew up in his home country. He also helps fund the construction of schools in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the first school, based in the city of Goma, opened this past September. Other schools are being built.
Caring for his brothers and sisters in recent years has taught him patience and how to become a more thoughtful communicator.
“I have a lot of responsibility, and I had to grow [up] fast, because I have to have conversations with them that parents should be having,” he said. “So it’s great for me because when you see the team environment, you get to sit back sometimes and you’ve just got to be quiet and listen.
“You have to do the same with [my brothers and sisters]. You have to listen to them before you actually help them. So they really have helped me control how I do it with the team: when to speak, when not to speak, when to really pay attention to what they’re saying. At the end of the day, if I don’t pay attention to what [my siblings are] saying, if I say something that’s real stupid, then it’s going to be hard for them to communicate with me.”
Biyombo has endured on-the-court difficulties along the way. Last season, his first year with the Magic, the team finished with a 29-53 record and he didn’t play nearly as well as he had hoped to play.
This season, he has played better, but the team has continued to stumble. Entering Saturday, the Magic had lost 18 of their last 21 games.
On Dec. 13, the injuryriddled Magic lost at home to another injury-ravaged team, the Los Angeles Clippers, 106-95. That night, the Magic played with too little effort and too little passion. Those deficiencies frustrated Biyombo.
Billy and Biska attended the game, and after Bismack showered and dressed, they left Amway Center to go to a steakhouse on International Drive for dinner.
They talked, and his brothers’ support and cheerfulness brightened Bismack’s mood.
Bismack, Billy, Biska and Bikim, who plays basketball at Montverde Academy, share a group text-message chain that they’ve titled “Keep It Moving.” Whenever one of them is disappointed with something — maybe a game or a test in school — the others urge him to learn from any mistakes and then put any regrets in the past.
So Bismack doesn’t just help his brothers and sisters. They help him, too. He’s learned that he cannot afford to appear down in the dumps, because any negative energy he shows would provide a bad example to his siblings when they face problems.
His brothers and sisters have been resilient.
They’ve adapted well to a new country.
They’re happy. They’re healthy. They’re excited about their futures.
“My mom and my dad have given me a lot of responsibility but also a lot of trust,” Bismack said. “My only concern is to make the right decision not only for them but the right decision for the next person. That’s where it becomes a little bit tricky for me. But at the end of the day, I think I’ve done just fine.”
And because of that, and because he and his siblings are all together, this will be a joyous, lovely Christmas.