Dikembe Mutombo

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JOHANNESBURG -- The National Basketball Association (NBA) and the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) today announced the top 87 boys and girls from 27 African countries who will travel to the first Basketball without Borders (BWB) Africa Camp in Angola, which will be held Aug. 31-Sept. 3 at Pavilhão Multiusos do Kilamba in Luanda.  BWB, the NBA and FIBA’s global basketball development and community outreach program, is celebrating its 15th anniversary this summer.

BWB Africa, which will be supported by the Angolan Basketball Federation (Federaçao Angolana de Basquetebol) and the Angola Ministry of Youth and Sports, will bring together the top male and female players born in 1999 from across Africa to learn directly from NBA and FIBA players, legends and coaches, including Bismack Biyombo (Orlando Magic; Democratic Republic of the Congo), Eric Bledsoe (Phoenix Suns; U.S.), Luc Mbah a Moute (LA Clippers; Cameroon; BWB Africa 2003), Salah Mejri (Dallas Mavericks; Tunisia), Thabo Sefolosha (Atlanta Hawks; Switzerland), and Cody Zeller (Charlotte Hornets; U.S.).

The NBA players will be joined by NBA Global Ambassador and Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo (Democratic Republic of the Congo); former NBA players Charlie Bell (U.S.), Jason Collins (U.S.), Olumide Oyedeji (Nigeria); and former WNBA players Astou Ndiaye-Diatta (Senegal) and Jenn Lacy (U.S.). 

“We are pleased to partner with FIBA to bring the 14th edition of Basketball without Borders Africa to Angola for the first time,” said NBA Vice President and Managing Director for Africa, Amadou Gallo Fall.  “Africa’s growing basketball ecosystem led to a record 10 African players on NBA rosters at the start of last season and five African players selected in the 2016 NBA Draft.  This year’s camp will once again provide young players from across the continent with the tools to succeed on the court and in life.”

“Angola enjoys a very rich and successful basketball tradition, so it is a great privilege to team up with the NBA in holding a Basketball without Borders camp there for the first time,” said FIBA National Federation &amp; Sport Director Zoran Radovic.

NBA coaches Tom Bialaszewski (most recently with the Los Angeles Lakers), Johnnie Bryant (Utah Jazz), Harold Ellis (Orlando Magic), BJ Johnson (Houston Rockets), Sidney Lowe (Washington Wizards) and Lloyd Pierce (Philadelphia 76ers) will also serve as BWB Africa coaches.  Duane Brooks (New Orleans Pelicans) and Steve Spiro (Cleveland Cavaliers) will serve as the camp’s athletic trainers, while Pelicans Senior Vice President of Basketball Operations/General Manager Dell Demps and Toronto Raptors President and General Manager Masai Ujiri will serve as camp directors. 

Working closely with longtime NBA Cares partners UNICEF and Hoops 4 Hope, NBA Cares will organize a variety of community outreach efforts teaching the importance of a healthy, active lifestyle and the values of the game, including teamwork, respect and leadership as part of BWB Africa.  NBA players and coaches will host a Jr. NBA basketball clinic at Kilamba Arena for 100 boys and girls from two schools in the Luanda area.  NBA Cares will also support two local schools - Blue Horizon Orphanage and School and Escola 1056 - with refurbishments, donations, and a visit from NBA players during the trip.  In addition, Hoops 4 Hope will lead daily life skills sessions for the campers, focusing on HIV/AIDS prevention, education, leadership lessons and character development. 

Nike, a BWB global partner since 2002, will outfit the campers and coaches with Nike apparel and footwear.  Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa, the first exclusive automotive partner of the NBA in Africa, will serve as an official partner of BWB Africa for the second consecutive year and will be integrated into in-arena signage.  South African Airways will return for the 14th year as a BWB Africa marketing partner.

Helmarc – Comércio e Indústria (Helmarc), a major real estate development company in Angola, will serve as the host partner of BWB Africa.  Helmarc will provide BWB Africa use of Pavilhão Multiusos do Kilamba, the state-of-the-art, multipurpose indoor arena in Luanda that will host the camp, and other logistical support for the event.   

Since 2001, BWB has reached more than 2,500 participants from 131 countries and territories, with 43 campers drafted into the NBA, including nine BWB Africa campers.  Twenty-one former BWB campers were on opening-night rosters for the 2015-16 NBA season.

The first-ever Basketball without Borders camp took place in Europe in July 2001.  Vlade Divac (Serbia) and Toni Kukoc (Croatia), together with former teammates from the Yugoslav national team, reunited to work with 50 children from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Slovenia and Serbia and Montenegro at La Ghirada in Treviso, Italy.  Since then, the NBA and FIBA have staged 46 BWB camps in 27 cities across 23 countries on six continents.  More than 215 current and former NBA, WNBA and FIBA players have joined more than 170 NBA team personnel from all 30 NBA teams to support BWB across the world.

BWB Asia was held June 23-26 at Dandenong Basketball Stadium in Melbourne, Australia.  BWB Europe will be held Sept. 7-10 at Kisakallio Sports Institute in Lohja, Finland.

The NBA has a long history in Africa with a record 10 African players on opening-night rosters for the 2015-16 NBA season and five African players selected in the 2016 NBA Draft.  Through NBA Cares, 61 places where kids and families can live, learn or play have been created in Africa, and Basketball without Borders Africa has been held 13 times.  The league opened an African headquarters in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2010.  On Aug. 1, 2015, Ellis Park Arena in Johannesburg hosted NBA Africa Game 2015, the first NBA game on the continent, in a Team Africa versus Team World format.  For more information on the NBA in Africa, fans can visit www.NBA.com/Africa, Facebook.com/NBAAfrica and Twitter @NBA_Africa. 

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Sefolosha, Mutombo To Participate In Basketball Without Borders In Africa

Jimmy Kimmel wanted to cheer up his associate Guillermo, as well as anyone else who is sad the NBA season is now over.

To do that, he, singer Aloe Blacc and Hall-of-Famer Dikembe Mutombo sang a song...about Dikembe Mutombo.

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Dikembe Mutombo Sings A Glorious Song About Himself On Jimmy Kimmel

Dikembe Mutombo's jersey was retired at halftime on Tuesday.  His name became an instant trending topic on Twitter, and fans at the arena were enjoying themselves as well.

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Mutombo Trending Nationally As Fans Enjoy Halftime Ceremony

Here are four things to know about NBA Global Ambassador Dikembe Mutombo:  He loves his family. He loves basketball. He loves Africa. He loves Atlanta.

So when given the chance to take part in an event that combined two of his deepest passions – namely, the first-ever NBA game in Africa – it was a foregone conclusion that Mutombo would participate. He attended the August 2015 exhibition game and sat courtside with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and NBA Africa Ambassador Hakeem Olajuwon.

Fans at the NBA Africa game got an unexpected bonus in the second quarter. Mutombo and Olajuwon, the league’s two all-time leading shot blockers, took off their business suits and checked into the game to compete against players more than 10 years younger. Mutombo had been waiting for the moment for decades.

“It was my goal,” Mutombo said. “But I really didn’t know how much I was going to play. I talked to the league about maybe playing two minutes or three minutes. Then they asked me, ‘Do you want to play longer than that? Because it’s your game. You have been asking for this game for 20 years. We’ll give it to you.’”

Mutombo grabbed 3 rebounds in his 4 minutes of action. Olajuwon thrilled the crowd by scoring on his patented Dream Shake move, something that never would have happened unless Mutombo coerced the NBA’s first African-born player into joining him in the game.

“Dream was like, ‘I’m not going,’” Mutombo said with a laugh. “I was forced to go make Hakeem Olajuwon want to play. I told him myself, ‘Just go out even for 30 seconds and leave.’ And I’m glad that he did.”

Mutombo reflected on the event and savored the fulfillment of a lifelong goal.

“Oh, it was a dream come true. It was a dream come true,” he said, repeating his words as if to savor them. “I don’t know if there will ever be a moment like that on the continent where we walk on a basketball court together.  I think we fulfilled our promise that we made to the next generation that they would get a chance to see us play on African soil.”

Mutombo’s journey to the NBA began in the winter of 1984 in his hometown of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. At the same time that Olajuwon, Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley were adjusting to life as NBA rookies, Mutombo was picking up a basketball for the first time.

Dikembe’s brother, Ilo, dragged him to the court to give the sport a try. Ilo’s appetite for basketball eventually propelled him to a collegiate career at Southern Indiana University. Dikembe himself had no such interest at the time, but Ilo wanted to convince his brother that his height and long reach – traits that helped Dikembe as a soccer goalie – would also help him dominate on a basketball court.

Mutombo struggled in his first attempts at basketball.

“It was not good,” Mutombo said. “I was like 17 and a half (years old). I fell down so bad and I cut my chin, and I had to get 18 stitches. I still have that scar. You can see it on my face. When you look at me near my chin, you can see I have a big cut. My brother and I always talk about it.”

Still, he stuck with the sport, eventually earning a spot on the national team and attracting the attention of legendary college coach John Thompson. Fewer than three years after trying the sport for the first time, Mutombo traveled halfway across the world to enroll at Georgetown University. At the time, he spoke five languages and several more African dialects, but English was not one of them. Nonetheless, he learned it as quickly as a freshman before starting his American basketball career as a sophomore.

Mutombo initially attended Georgetown with the goal of becoming a physician and returning to Congo to treat patients back home. He changed tracks in college and graduated instead with dual degrees in linguistics and diplomacy.

“That was my goal, a long time from today,” he said of his original medical ambitions. “I still love science though. I’m very fascinated by medicine and the progress of medicine. It is the reason why I’m on the board of Centers for Disease Control Foundation, I was on the board of the National Institute of Health, I’m on the board of UNICEF, and I sit on the board of many medical and humanitarian causes, because I want to ensure that our young people in Africa – and women in particular – have good access to health care.”

Even if Mutombo has been a lifelong ambassador off the court, his NBA career was predicated on being a most inhospitable host on it. Drafted by the Denver Nuggets in 1991, the 7’2” center quickly established himself statistically as a premier shot blocker, and he was chosen to play in the All-Star Game as a rookie.

By his second season, however, Mutombo wanted to convince his opponents not to bother shooting in the painted area at all. To fully impart his sentiment, he created the finger wag gesture that became his signature.

“Guys were not getting the message that they should not keep bringing it up,” he said. “I used to shake my head all the time, and I think that the message was not getting to them. I thought to myself, ‘Maybe waving my finger would help let get the message.’ And then I started doing it and it became a trademark. I loved to do it.”

Mutombo, an eight-time All-Star, excelled on both ends of the court, but his defense always shined a little more brightly. He led the NBA in total blocks for five consecutive seasons (1993-94 to 1997-98). Perhaps more impressively, he won the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year Award four times.

Mutombo came to Atlanta as a free agent in 1996. The Hawks turned into an Eastern Conference power with Mutombo playing alongside Mookie Blaylock, Steve Smith, Christian Laettner and Alan Henderson. Even though Mutombo would eventually move on from the Hawks to play in four other cities, Mutombo’s heart and offseason home always remained in Atlanta.

Mutombo fondly recalled the team’s temporary relocation while Philips Arena was being built.

“We transformed the city of Atlanta,” he said. “We were winning.  We averaged over 30,000 people a game at the Georgia Dome. You know, it was one of the amazing moments for me: playing in front of 62,000 people at the Georgia Dome for a game in Atlanta. You cannot take that away from me. You cannot.”

In 1997, in his second season as a Hawk, Mutombo created the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation and based it in Atlanta. The organization was founded with the mission of improving the health, education and quality of life for residents of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Eight years after its founding, the group helped open the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital in Kinshasa. Mutombo named the 300-bed facility after his mother, who set the example that he followed as he dedicated his post-playing career to humanitarian causes.

“My mom and dad had a lot of things to do with me being who I am today,” Mutombo said.  They told me, ‘Don’t see the world through yourself, but see the world the way God made it.  Think about God’s children and the suffering of those who don’t have any food. If you can feed them, feed them. If they don’t have any clothes, put clothes on them.”

Mutombo said that his parents didn’t just tell him how to help others; they showed him too.

“Nobody did that, but my mom and dad did despite how little they did have,” he said. “They did it through their family, and I just took that to the next level.”

Mutombo’s works of charity helped earn him the NBA’s J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship award in 2001 and 2009. He remains to this day the only person to win the award twice.

Even as he aged into his 40s, Mutombo remained a productive player. When he retired in 2009, he had amassed the second-highest block total in NBA history: 3289 blocks. In April 2015, the Basketball Hall of Fame announced his selection for entry as a player, and shortly after, the Hawks declared that Mutombo’s #55 would be the fourth retired number in team history.

Even though Mutombo appreciates the continuums of both basketball history and the cycle of works of goodwill, he also revels in the special exception of having a number reserved in his honor.

“Once your jersey goes up,” he said, “nobody can take it afterward.”

And if someone does try to take it, they will most certainly get a finger wag as Mutombo chides, “No, no, no.”

Story by KL ChouinardTwitter: @KLChouinard

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Mutombo A Hall-of-Famer On And Off The Court

Tuesday, Nov. 24 is Dikembe Mutombo Night as we honor the recently-inducted Hall-of-Famer for his contributions both on and off the court.

At halftime of our game against the Boston Celtics that night, we will hold a special jersey retirement ceremony, raising the iconic #55 into the Philips Arena rafters alongside Bob Pettit’s #9, Dominique Wilkins’ #21 and Lou Hudson’s #23.

Every fan in attendance that evening will receive a “no, no, no” foam finger.  There will also be limited edition Dikembe Mutombo t-shirts for sale at the Hawks Shop that will celebrate him as a basketball player and humanitarian.  All proceeds from those t-shirt sales will benefit the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation, which aims to improve the health, education and quality of life for the people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Mutombo was born.

Our players will also wear a #55 patch on their jerseys during the game.

Mutombo is an 8-time NBA All Star 4-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year.  Off the court, he has earned several citizenship and community awards for his humanitarian work.

Limited tickets for Mutombo Night remain available and are on sale here.

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LOOK: Here's The Shirt Hawks Fans Can Get On Dikembe Mutombo Night

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12 Photos That Capture Dikembe Mutombo's Time With The Hawks

With Dikembe Mutombo being inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame on Friday, we decided to dedicate this week's trivia to his finest craft: shot-blocking.

Below, name the Hawks who have recoded at least 5 blocks in a game dating back to 1985, when blocks became an official statistic.  Good luck!

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Trivia: Hawks With 5+ Blocks In A Game

Atlanta Hawks CEO Steve Koonin announced Tuesday that the Club will retire Dikembe Mutombo's #55 during a ceremony Nov. 24.  Mutombo will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame Sept. 11.  He won two Defensive Player of the Year awards with the Hawks and was one of the Club's best players in the 1990s.  Tuesday was also Dikembe Mutombo Day in Fulton County.

Here's how fans and media members reacted to the surprise announcement: