SALY, Senegal – Ten players, dressed in blue-and-white NBA Academy jerseys, took their positions on the court. They set up with five players on defense and five on offense, ready to work on their defensive sets, specifically how to defend a screen.
Manuel Camboma drove to the right, his defender Mouhamed Camara yelled, “Ice! Ice!” Camara forced Camboma to the left away from the screen, cutting off the option to use the screen. But in doing so he left an open lane to the basket, which Camboma took advantage of as he drove in and scored.
It was a teaching moment.
Alfred Aboya, a coach at the Academy, stopped the play and reset. It was almost like rewinding a video, the same sequence playing out. Only this time, when Camara called, “Ice!,” his teammate Paulino Mangar Majok slid into the gap, cutting off the lane to the basket.
At NBA Academy Africa, elite basketball players from the continent, ages 15 to 18 are recruited to come and train so that they can reach what they all hope for—to play college basketball and then in the pros. For that to happen, their coaches believe they must have a strong Basketball IQ and master the fundamentals of the game.
Camboma, who came to the Academy from Angola, said that in his home country, “they don’t teach us how to play defense on screens, how to talk on defense, how to position yourself on defense,” adding that, “you come here, you have to talk on defense. You got to learn how to defend the screen.”
Camara, who is from Senegal, said: “Before [arriving at the Academy] I think I’m a great player. I can do whatever I want.”
He has learned otherwise thanks to his coaches, he said. “They got patience. They teach me how to play basketball. How to learn the game more.”
Patience and repetition are keys at the academy, according to Roland Houston, the Academy’s Technical Director who is in charge of all player development and coaching.
Houston noted that training at the Academy has been influenced by some of the teaching strategies popular in Europe like emphasizing practice time in the gym over playing just game after game. Houston referred to it as “being in the laboratory.”
That method is showing results. According to the NBA, 64 European players were listed on opening-night rosters for the 2023-2024 season.
The method is also proving to be successful for Academy graduates as Seifeldin Hendawy and Khaman Maluach both committed to Division I colleges for the 2024-25 season—Hendawy to Loyola Chicago and Maluach to Duke.
And on June 28, 2024, Ulrich Chomche made history as he was the first NBA Academy alumni to be drafted to the NBA as the 57th overall pick by the Toronto Raptors.
Houston laughed as he recounted one of the first times he drew up a play on a whiteboard at the Academy. In the huddle, he said all the players seemed to understand the play, but when they set up on the court there were guys all on the wrong side.
“What I don’t want to happen is when a kid leaves us, he doesn’t understand the [basketball] language—screen to screen, everyone down screen, here’s a staggered screen,” Houston said.
“We’re going to do it. We’re going to ice it. So we have a curriculum. We go over it with them. We’ll make sure that they understand when the play is being drawn up.”
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