All-star Siakam has helped inspire a continent
Pascal Siakam will stand proudly with a Cameroonian countryman and another ascendant star with African roots at the NBA all-star game this weekend, beacons and role models for generations to come.
It is responsibility the Raptors forward feels, accepts and wants. He needs to show young players that dreams are possible with work and perseverance and opportunity.
He need only point to himself and Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid and Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo — the son of Nigerian parents and captain of the all-star team that includes Siakam and Embiid — as proof.
“It means everything. It’s amazing to see … something that never happened before,” Siakam said before heading to Chicago for his first taste of all-star weekend. “It’s a historic moment and you just want to continue to enjoy it, and hopefully they’re looking at us and can see something that can motivate them.”
The kids in Cameroon and across Africa do indeed look at the two stars and see endless possibilities. There have been other all-stars with African roots — Hakeem Olajuwon and Dikembe Mutombo come quickly to mind — and role players, such as Luol Deng and Luc Mbah a Moute, who blazed trails eventually taken by the likes of Siakam and Embiid.
But the success of those two and Antetokounmpo, all at the very height of the league and really just starting their careers, marks the first time so many with African roots have been so dominant at the same time.
“There is a lot of pride in this for all of us,” Embiid said. It is not lost on his countryman. “It’s crazy to think about,” said Siakam, who began playing competitive basketball less than a decade ago. “We didn’t even think something like that
could ever happen. To have that, man, it just shows the growth.
“You just hope that, yes, it comes … and we could have even more players in the league and the game to continue to grow.”
The NBA is doing its part to promote the game and mine talent across Africa, now more than ever. Aside from the Giants of Africa Foundation camps organized by Raptors president Masai Ujiri and the league’s enduring Basketball Without Borders program, the NBA has established the 12team Basketball Africa League that will kick off its first season next month.
Sunday’s all-star game will be broadcast to 42 African countries, and the NBA is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the opening of its first African office in Johannesburg, South Africa.
“I think we’re doing a great job of it, and I think Masai and the NBA and everyone is doing their part, promoting the game on the continent and making sure that we continue to tell our young players or young kids that it’s possible, and it’s something that they can do,” Siakam said. “Obviously, guys like Masai, the NBA is working on having the infrastructure, and obviously with time making sure that we give those resources.”
The 25-year-old Siakam said he didn’t grow up idolizing any African players because there weren’t any true stars for him to emulate at that point, even if he could see the games. Olajuwon was years removed from his heyday, Mutombo as well. Siakam’s sports heroes came from soccer.
“A lot of African athletes I liked because soccer was my thing. So Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto’o,” he said. ”Those were the guys that we looked at as kids, like: Man, they’re doing it, and they’re doing it at a high level. We would see them on TV.
“So it wasn’t much about basketball, to be honest. It was just those type of athletes, those guys were the guys that we looked at as kids.”
Now he and Embiid and Antetokounmpo are those real, live icons.
“It’s amazing,” Senegal’s Tacko Fall of the Boston Celtics said. “It shows any African kid that if you have that hunger, you can get there.
“Joel has taken steps forward every year. Pascal is now an all-star starter. That means a lot to me, and I know it means a lot to the entire continent.”