Between those who want to stay closer to the field and head for a career as a coach or assistant, others who aim for leadership roles or those who feel the need to cut completely, Joakim Noah has chosen his path.
The former Bulls pivot has joined his elders like Luol Deng and Dikembe Mutombo by investing in the BAL (Basketball Africa League), the third edition of which begins today in Dakar.
Symbol of the link between Africa and the rest of the world
Three years after retiring from the NBA floors, Joakim Noah returned to the reasons for his commitment to the BAL, a choice that was obvious to him, whose link with Africa has strengthened. every year when he accompanied his father to Cameroon to visit his family. Born in the United States, French international, but very attached to his African roots, he could only join such a project.
“I had just finished the bubble. I knew my career was over and I immediately had the opportunity to invest in BAL. I jumped at the chance. It was something very important for me in many ways. I had been returning to Africa once a year since I was a child, on family trips, to visit my grandfather and great-grandmother. My heritage was therefore in Cameroon. I spent a lot of time there. And it was always very difficult because every time I wanted to do things on the mainland, I felt very lonely, and I saw how lonely my father was too, in terms of working on the mainland. , especially when it came to basketball”he told Andscape. “It brings me back to my family heritage and the possibility of having family members in America and connecting with the continent. It is something very special. It’s more than just a basketball league. I knew it would be something unique and special in many ways”.
The project was tailor-made for him. The BAL gave him the opportunity to highlight the continent, with a rather exceptional margin of progress on many points, and not only sports.
“I am very proud to be an NBA Africa investor. I feel like it opens doors that I never knew existed when I was playing. And I think the future is very, very bright because Africa is not only shining right now, but it has one of the youngest populations in the world. So if you look at the numbers themselves, this league is going to get better and better. It’s obvious “he continued. “And I couldn’t be more proud, because I am a child of the diaspora. I grew up and was born in New York, and I was lucky enough to be able to go to Africa. I know what it meant to me as a man growing up and that part of my identity is a big part of who I am. A lot of kids, especially in the United States, don’t have that same sense of belonging, heritage, identity. And I know what it brought to my life. This league will therefore be able to rely on the diaspora, heritage, identity, just as much as on basketball. That’s what I’m really proud of and that’s why I’m proud to be an ambassador for this league. That’s why I believe in it and why I’m ready to devote time to it”.
A proud and motivated pioneer
After traveling to Morocco and Egypt, Joakim Noah has planned to go to Dakar to attend this first stage of the 2023 edition of the BAL. He will then have the opportunity to see the progress made and the steps that remain to be accomplished before the BAL becomes a more recognized professional league.
Its first objective will be to serve as a “training center” by concentrating all the talents of the continent, the best of which will then be brought to evolve in the NBA. A lot of hope therefore rests on the 12 teams qualified for this third BAL.
“This is the start of something very special. The reason why it’s so special is that we have to change the way people perceive African basketball. Right now, when you think of African basketball, you think of big, long-armed, raw players who block shots, play defense, do all the dirty work. But that is explained by the fact that the children who arrive in America are already 16 or 17 years old”, he added. “There, this league gives them a belief system that allows them to say to themselves: ‘I don’t need to leave the continent, my family, my roots’ (…). Today, young Africans no longer need to think about going to America. They can just look at beautiful stadiums, beautiful fields – very similar to those in the NBA – and have them in their motherland. This is a very strong message, not only for people around the world, but also for Africans”.
What about Cameroon? No Cameroonian team has managed to qualify for the BAL in the past two years. However, Joakim Noah is well placed to know that the potential is there.
“This year we didn’t qualify and that’s a big blow. Joel Embiid is Cameroonian. Pascal Siakam is Cameroonian. There is also the other youngster (Christian Koloko) from Toronto. We have a lot of basketball culture and history, and some of the best players in the world are from Cameroon. We must continue to build the infrastructure, the base, because the reality is that culturally, we are at the level”.
Joakim Noah will thus go down in history as one of the first to have believed in this bet to set up an NBA with African sauce. The first steps have been successfully completed, and the rest must now follow. We will still have to wait to take stock of the BAL. For the moment “Jooks” wants to give himself the right to dream.
“I think that in ten years, the BAL will be completely different. The talent will be much better. The ecosystem and everything around it, the entertainment, the business, will be better. When I think of commercial real estate around these stadiums, there will be so much business around it that it will be a whole different league. In terms of talent, but also the way people perceive the championship.he predicted. “The most important aspect of this championship is that Americans will be able to learn more about their African heritage. It’s not someone who is going to teach them. It’s one thing for someone to tell you. But it is another thing to feel it and to experience it. This league will be a bridge for the diaspora and will connect the dots that are hard to explain. On an emotional and identity level, things will happen in this championship that will create a bridge that is difficult to express in words”.
