{"id":31310,"date":"2016-12-23T02:42:14","date_gmt":"2016-12-23T02:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/nba-africa-academy-to-open-in-senegal\/"},"modified":"2016-12-23T02:42:11","modified_gmt":"2016-12-23T02:42:11","slug":"nba-africa-academy-to-open-in-senegal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/nba-africa-academy-to-open-in-senegal\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Africa academy to open in Senegal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{The US National Basketball Association (NBA) has announced it will open its first African training academy in Senegal early next year.}<\/p>\n<p>Amadou Gallo Fall, the NBA&#8217;s vice-president for Africa, told the BBC the centre would train boys and girls aged between 16 and 18.<\/p>\n<p>He said the centre would be part of its global network of elite training academies.<br \/>\nSeveral Africans have played for top teams in the NBA league.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Fall, who is originally from Senegal, said the pan-African academy would use its network to scout for players from around the continent.<\/p>\n<p>He said the players would be given access to facilities and resources available to elite players including nutritionists, personal coaches and physiotherapists.<\/p>\n<p>The centre will be in Thies, 60km (40 miles) east of the capital, Dakar.<\/p>\n<p>Senegal&#8217;s national teams &#8211; men and women &#8211; have traditionally been among the strongest in Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Fall said those who don&#8217;t make it to the NBA would have other avenues, such as &#8220;other great leagues around the world, including the NBA development league or in US universities&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>He said 14 African-born players on the NBA opening roster this year had come from the NBA&#8217;s grassroots program, Basket Without Borders, including Senegal&#8217;s Gorgui Dieng and Cameroon&#8217;s Pascal Siakam.<\/p>\n<p>He added the NBA had a long association with the continent, citing legendary players such as Hakeem Olajuwon, Manute Bol and Dikembe Mutombo.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That generation has paved the way and they&#8217;ve inspired and ushered a significant number of other young players over the years, a lot of them from Senegal,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The NBA launched three academy centres in China in October, one in India last month and is planning to open another global centre based in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>The NBA held its first game in Africa in 1 August 2015 in the South African city of Johannesburg.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-17258 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_93092979_gettyimages-512929940.jpg\" alt=\"Senegal&#039;s Gorgui Dieng was on the NBA&#039;s opening roster\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{The US National Basketball Association (NBA) has announced it will open its first African training academy in Senegal early next year.} Amadou Gallo Fall, the NBA&#8217;s vice-president for Africa, told the BBC the centre would train boys and girls aged between 16 and 18. He said the centre would be part of its global network [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-31310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31310"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31310"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}