Zaire (Dwyane Wade’s son) is the perfect fit for Basketball Africa League’s next growth phase

The maiden edition of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) was originally penned for a 2020 unveiling but the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic made that impossible and only an NBA themed bubble setting turned out to be the competition’s saving grace.

As one half of a multi-pronged partnership involving Africa’s basketball governing body (FIBA- Africa), the NBA’s success with a well laid out bubble structure in Orlando that saved the NBA 2019-2020 season served as a great learning source to get things right in the midst of chaos.

Beyond overcoming the pandemic, the BAL generated a ton of publicity for the wrong reasons at least from a purely basketball point of view by registering Grammy Award winning rapper, J. Cole, as a player.

Cole played for Rwandan side Patriots Basketball Club in the BAL’s inaugural season and caused quite a stir in the tabloids.

American Rapper J.Cole played in the inaugural BAL for Rwandan side Patriots.

However, for a professional sports league not named football or soccer at its infant stage, this was a wrong move as it failed to attract the necessary seriousness to the tournament. From the outside looking, having J. Cole play very few minutes across a few games and bolting for the US with the excuse of exiting the league to sort out family issues, smacked of a gimmick league. (Click highlighted text to read full article story)

From the sporting side, having Cole pick a roster spot ahead of players who have dreamt of having such opportunities and competing on such stages taken from them, was of equally poor taste. Season two of the BAL went smoothly but got lost in the hysteria of 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification playoff games. As such, the tournament failed to generate enough talking points to place the BAL on the African sports conversation.

Rwanda’s BK Arena has hosted the BAL playoffs since its inception and will host this year’s edition.

The third time’s a charm expression fits perfectly into how things are panning out for the BAL’s third season to really show out even if there won’t be a representative from Africa’s most populous country (Nigeria) featuring at the playoffs stage and it is mainly down to the son of NBA Hall of Famer, Dwyane Wade. Zaire Wade is in the early stages of his basketball career with the huge shadow of his father’s greatness in the sport lurking wherever he turns.

Even after leaving the Salt Lake City Stars- the minor league affiliate of the NBA’s Utah Jazz- Wade still can’t shake off his father’s greatness. The older Wade has minority ownership in the Jazz and according to multiple reports, the team’s value has jumped from $1.75 billion to $2.25 billion two years after the former Miami Heat star joined Utah’s ownership group.

Zaire Wade in action for Salt Lake City Stars

The younger Wade’s venture into Africa’s premier basketball tournament comes on the back of Dwyane Wade’s tabloid headlining visit with his wife Gabrielle Union to the continent. The couple with daughter Kaavia, visited Ghana, South Africa, Zanzibar and Namibia to celebrate Union’s 50^th birthday and the visit made quite an impression on them with Union stating “my soul has never felt cleaner or lighter” after her visit to Ghana.

Union and Wade in Ghana Photo Courtesy: Beyond The Return

Dwyane Wade on the other hand, had the name “Kwesi” given to him when he visited Ghana and the South African flag tattooed on his body. By registering to compete in the BAL, Zaire Wade has given the Basketball Africa League a solid semblance of legitimacy beyond the headlines his surname generates. Wade is an actual professional basketball player and not a caricature pro baller J. Cole is when he featured in the BAL.

Photo Courtesy: Beyond The Return

Games in the Sahara Conference are done with four teams (AS Douanes from Senegal, Stade Malien from Mali, Rwanda Energy Group from Rwanda and Abidjan Basketball Club from Ivory Coast) booking their place in the playoffs.

Ghanaian-British international Power Forward Matthew Bryan-Amaning helped AS Douanes progress to the playoffs.

The remaining quartet of spots in the playoffs is to be settled later this month via the Nile Conference with games taking place in Cairo, Egypt and Zaire Wade’s Cape Town Tigers are up against heavy hitters like Al-Ahly of Egypt and Petro de Luanda from Angola for place in the playoffs in May. With his son competing at the top level, it would be shocking if Dwyane Wade does not show up in Cairo to witness some games with Union by his side.

Cape Town Tigers

Since Wade is a member of the Banana Boat Club, having him around the BAL could just be the magnet that pulls fellow club members Chris Bosh and Carmelo Anthony to court side seats of BAL games to watch Zaire play. While it might be a bit of a stretch, Anthony’s 16-year-old son, Kiyan, might fancy a run out in the BAL in the near future to test his readiness for the big leagues.

Carmelo and son Kiyan

Their presence gives BAL the media presence it desires while keeping the competitive level of the tournament intact via the play of the man who brought it indirectly. On the court, season three of the Basketball Africa League has aced the test thus far with defending champion US Monastir of Tunisia failing to progress to the playoff stage because of the elevated play of teams in the tournament.

Liz Mills

In an era of gender equity, the BAL is scoring major points more than any basketball league in the world by having Liz Mills lead Abidjan Basket to the playoffs after leading Kenya to the 2021 AfroBasket- its first AfroBasket appearance after a 28-year absence.

Dwyane Wade watched Zaire at the BAL Combine

The Basketball Africa League has had to deal with a ton of challenges with none bigger than a full blown pandemic but the competition is well on its way to becoming a full blown feature on the African sports calendar and having a basketball player with the surname and pull of an NBA Hall of Fame inductee like Dwyane Wade will help a ton.

Basketball Africa League needs a different kind of Bubble to see out inaugural campaign

Implementing it is capital intensive but playing an internationally recognized sports competition in a bubble is the best option at this time. Barring a massive worldwide vaccination program of unprecedented levels (that is assuming a vaccine is cleared for human use in the first place between now and November) gathering tested athletes or individuals in a confined area represents the safest way to see out competitions. The NBA has done a tremendous job thus far with its bubble as no cases of corona has been confirmed in over a month since some of the best basketball players in the world were confined to plush apartments in Disney World in Orlando, Florida. The NBA provides a template for the maiden season of the Basketball Africa League (BAL) to commence albeit at a later date.

Background

Basketball’s governing body on the continent-FIBA Africa and the NBA has partnered to create a competition that aims at popularizing basketball on the football mad African continent and create a path for players on the continent to the NBA among others. Set to commence on March 13 in Dakar, Senegal, the tournament was geared for a show stopping debut backed by powerful institutions including Nike and Pepsi.

It is the NBA’s first ever professional league outside North America and comes as a positive vibe in the face of the massive fallout between the NBA and China over protests in Hong Kong and poor treatment of Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province. Africa will have a quarter of the world’s population in next three decades and exposing the next generation to basketball creates a huge market and talent pool to tap into considering the continent’s growing economies and overall athletic traits of its indigenes.

However, the power and wealth of the personalities and bodies behind this project couldn’t prevent the inevitable reality associated with the corona virus pandemic.  As such, the BAL is suspended until further notice with a review in play and a possible start date to be announced in the final quarter of the year.

Bruan-Amaning

BAL’s Ghanaian Touch

For the record, Ghana’s de Facto best basketball league, the Accra Basketball League (ABL) Men’s Division I Champions, Braves of Customs, participated in the qualifiers held in Benin last year but missed out on qualification to the tournament. Ghana could have been part of the process if the country had an arena that meets international standards as those located in cities to be mentioned later in this piece.

Conversely, members of Ghana’s diaspora have been contracted to play various roles in the tournament. Veteran American born Guard Alhaji Mohammed has been signed by Tunisian Champions US Monastir while British born Forward Mathew Bryan-Amaning has been signed by Egyptian Champs Zamalek. In administration, John Manyo-Plange was named BAL Vice President and Head of Strategy and Operations earlier this year.

Mohammed

Play Format

Popularizing the competition and basketball meant the BAL would hit the campaign train and make stops in six African cities. Cairo (Egypt), Lagos (Nigeria) and Monastir (Tunisia) are scheduled to host games in the Nile Conference while Dakar, Sale (Morocco) and Luanda (Angola) are scheduled to host games in the Sahara Conference.

Each Conference has six teams with the top two teams in each Conference progressing to the next stage; games from Africa’s version of the Final Four to the final are to be played at the plush Kigali Arena. League winning teams from the host cities at the round robin stage including Morocco’s AS Sale and Nigeria’s Rivers Hoopers qualified automatically to the competition whereas the remaining six spots were confirmed after a series of qualification games.

AS Sale

Adjusting to Corona  

Due to the varied rate of infections in the enlisted cities, the BAL bubble ought to be held in Monastir and Luanda since Tunisia and Angola have 1,717 cases with 1,265 recoveries and 51 deaths and 1,679 cases with 569 recoveries and 78 deaths respectively at the time of writing. Both locations are in play to host Conference Games with the latter stages originally planned to be held in Rwanda which has 2,152 cases with 1,392 recoveries and seven deaths.

Why BAL needs fans at Games

Luanda’s Kilamba Arena

The BAL needs fans at the arenas because the competition can’t do without the fans simple. The NBA can do without fans and is doing it in Disney World, the major leagues in Europe have done it and passed it on to the continental stage. On the other hand, for a tournament meant to kick start the massive drive to push basketball conversation into the everyday conversation of the average African sports follower, getting fans into arenas is a must.

Fans need to be at the arenas to serve as individual promoters of the BAL and basketball at large. While marketing and advertizing personnel can pull all the stops to popularize a product, word of mouth is still a powerful tool especially in Africa.

Kigali Arena

Staging games in empty arenas would form poor backdrops to a yet to be established product and make it harder to sell. In the face of lingering issues surrounding COVID 19, games need to be staged in cities passionate about basketball on the continent and Monastir and Luanda offer the perfect spots to do so. Hotspots are synonymous with the corona virus but there aren’t larger basketball hotspots in Africa than Luanda and Monastir.

Since the opening of the Kigali Arena in 2019, basketball has been revitalized in the Central African state and a record crowd filled the 10,000 capacity venue to watch Patriots beat REG to win the Rwandan League title; getting people to watch games live won’t be an issue in these cities.

How the BAL Bubble differs from the NBA and the advantages it comes with

Dakar Arena

The BAL can’t afford to pull off an NBA styled bubble because for starters the latter competition is a well established global brand that can do without in person promotion for a while until the virus is all figured out. The objectives of the BAL mean bringing the game and some of the best players on the continent to fans with restrictions of course.

The reduced number of teams (six in a city) and eight in Kigali is far fewer than the 22 held up in Orlando so logistical challenges are reduced since fewer persons are involved. Monastir and Luanda have more than enough hotels to accommodate 12 players per team plus their respective technical and support staff during the duration of the tournament. Such personnel are to remain confined to the hotel premise with no physical interaction with the outside world during their stay and games.

The NBA has 22 teams in its bubble with each team having 15 players and at least five technical personnel. The financial gap means the goodies LeBron James and Co enjoy (fishing) in Orlando are likely to be absent in Africa’s bubble bar a good hair cut and ping pong tables.

Kigali Arena

Since all three cities have low comparative number of infections, the BAL should accommodate fans in the arenas. The sections closest to the teams in the arena are to be covered up and fans are to be restricted to the upper sections just as the National Football League (NFL) has proposed to do when its season commences on September 10. Fans inside the arena are to come along with nose masks and go through temperature checks and personal hygiene procedures at entry points.

A can’t miss opportunity

Since the corona virus has altered competition calendars across multiple sports disciplines, there is the need for the BAL to push through with its schedule before the end of this year. Next year, the postponed Olympics and European Championship will take place and easily drown out any noise created by the NBA-FIBA Africa product. Top football leagues in Europe are very likely to continue sans fans in stadia for a large part of the 2020-2021 season looking at the recent spike in infections in several countries.

As such, fans uncomfortable with watching games played out in drab settings, would find the BAL atmosphere a pleasant one to take in. Basically, this is the perfect time for the BAL to set the foundation, get Africa talking basketball and build on those gains for the future.