Many Nigerians who hold a deep love and skill for basketball have seen their passion rendered insignificant due to the absence of essential opportunities for its development. The story of a typical player in Nigeria goes thus; a child discovers their skill for the game as early as high school, they participate in school teams, play in inter-school competitions, pursue it leisurely during university, and watch the game being regaled to a weekend sport to hang with friends.
Perhaps this trajectory does not seem as disappointing because it is common for skilled athletes born in Nigeria – a place where more obstacles are thrown at dreams than support. However, being a less popular sport in the country, there are little to no avenues to explore the skill and seriously consider making careers out of it without leaving the country.
At least, in academic institutions, stock is put into engaging the student’s interest in the game, hence training is available and competitions are set up to invigorate players. Beyond those controlled environments, basketball just becomes a hobby. Notwithstanding, the quest to do more with basketball became the premise behind the inception of HoopDreamsNG, a basketball entertainment organization. By merging the need for organized competitions and the value for a good party, HoopDreamsNG is creating a space where players and basketball enthusiasts can converge and have a good time. What started as games between friends who just wanted to shoot some hoops, became a thriving community of talented Nigerians eager to connect with fellow basketball players.
Within a year in operation, the HoopDreamsNG has organized multiple basketball competitions across universities and communities in Lagos, and has partnered with international sport affiliated brands like Adidas and Hennessy’s In The Paint Initiative. In this chat with Culture Custodian, the CEO of the organization, Iyin Laditan speaks about the inspiration behind HoopDreamsNG and their plans for the future.
When/how did you get into basketball and how was that interest cultivated into adulthood?
I think my first time playing basketball was SS1 in Corona. I had just changed schools and I needed to do something fun, you know. So I went to the court and it just naturally happened. I really sucked. I had the energy and I needed to do something, so that was it.
I mean, it just started translating. Everywhere I went, any time I traveled, I was just trying to play ball. In school there was always a hustle to sneak out to train. When we had games, everybody would come round and watch us ball .
Can you tell me about HoopDreams?
It’s crazy. People just look at HoopDreams as this whole thing. Even sometimes I don’t even believe this is what it has become. It’s just our life. We’ve always just wanted to play ball. Someone would set up this competition where you go and play and if you don’t win, you’d start wondering why the heck you are not winning. You’ll spend the next two or three months focusing, training, “okay I need to get back to this stage.” It was always about finding more in basketball. Something more fun, more engaging, then from there it led to feeling like there’s really nothing going on in basketball that can sustain my interest for a long time. So it started being “oh i need to set up my own competitions.” We did a couple of competitions then I realized it would make sense if we get more people involved in it. That’s just how it kept going.
My team grew; me, my friends, we just started doing things together. From there, organizing friendly games, going to different universities to set up games and we just saw that people wanted it. It was an actual need, and it just kept going from there. And of course we have this guy on the team, Captain, who has been very particular that this basketball thing isn’t just about setting up those games, it’s about the social aspect of it. How can you get people to come out and have fun? So we started trying to do parties. It was just like, how are we gonna do a party? But we just started doing parties and the basketball guys are doing their own, the party guys are doing their own, everybody is having fun. The party guys are screaming as somebody’s dunking, you know. At the end of the day everybody’s trying to get on board, you know, so it’s really encouraging for us. So we just keep moving.
How can someone with an interest be a part of the community?
I mean, it depends on your level of interest if you just want to come and have fun, right? We have a bunch of quarterly parties. Well, really it’s like a mini competition that players are fighting for and then we have everybody just come around and have fun, that kind of thing.
In Nigeria, there isn’t a pathway to pursuing basketball professionally. It’s typically a skill that has little to no opportunities for further development or exploration. What do you believe is the reason behind this?
I mean, it’s part of the problem we’re trying to solve right now – why are there no opportunities for anyone? The opportunities are very few right now and to get noticed in basketball, you have to have an extreme amount of talent and also a lot of – should we say, “right friends” – people who will push you. Like you said, that platform to sky rocket players is not really there.
That’s part of what we’re solving with HoopDreams. If you can ball, come out here, compete against top guys. We post highlights of players on Instagram and coaches from all over are reaching out to us daily asking “who is this guy” “what can he do” “can we get in touch?” We are setting up meetings for players weekly. We’re also setting up all these pipelines with different organizations that can help push the basketball culture a bit more. So by the time we have games, it’s obvious that this person can do this. People are looking for talent all over the world so they can just easily come in and see what is happening. And of course, we’re also trying to set up a sustainable league within Nigeria, something that you don’t need to get out of the country to have fun. We recognize that the opportunities are not that much right now, but we’re growing and we are seeing a change of the tide.
What has the creation of the BAL (Basketball Africa League) done for your community?
The BAL is another solid pipeline. It’s the closest thing to the NBA in Africa and the Giants of Africa are doing a great job there. What they’ve shown us is if you can ball out in Nigeria, you can be credible. If you are connected to the right set of parties, you can get on there. We had Kareem, Victor Ezeh, some young talented guys from Lagos who got in there, played against top professionals from all over the world, showed their skills. It’s a really cool stage. Giants of Africa is actually doing a lot of great work. They had their festival recently in Kigali, it was absolutely beautiful.
In the year since the organization has been active, it has been involved in major brand partnerships. The Hennessy In The Paint Initiative, the PlpAfrica partnership that merges digital skills with basketball, and the most recent Adidas hangout. What does it mean to the organization that deals like this have been secured so early on?
We are deeply tied into the community, so we feel the problems as well. When we’re talking to organizations, they can easily sense what is needed. Everybody’s trying to feed a need. Every organization, even if they’re trying to do CSR (corporate social responsibility) or whatever, they’re going for a need in the community. So they can easily just tap into the program that we set up. The visibility is there, the credibility is there, so why not? Everybody is going to jump on.
How do these partnerships make you feel? Do they reaffirm what you’re trying to do?
I don’t know. A lot of people feel like I should be so happy but alI see now is a lot of the problems ahead of me. Every day there’s just the thought of 70 more problems. Next year I know I have to work to maintain what we have going on. Even maintaining it for myself because there’s a level of energy required. So it’s just, new day, new work, new energy, just keep going like that.
Can you take me through the process behind the Hennessy In The Paint collaboration. How did that come about?
Hennessy is about community impact right now and they are doing it through basketball. So they wanted to look for a community that needed a basketball court and they contacted Osa Seven who is a brilliant artist. So the guy came up with some designs and they put that on the court and they did a launch event in VGC. It was really cool. Brought out the whole VGC community, artists, everybody that needed to be there. They even brought an ex NBA player Joakim Noah who was interacting with everyone, running up and down, you know, it was just cruising.
As of right now, is there a relationship between NBA Africa and HoopDreams?
I mean, yes, we have met a couple of times but we haven’t done anything together per se. We’re looking to do that in the future, of course. But, I mean, they’re huge, a lot of our goals align with theirs. So we’re looking for that, of course.
When there’s a partnership in place, like what would you want it to look like?
For an organization like the NBA stuff like how can they establish community ties? If they want to come and do something big in Nigeria, you don’t just come and announce that oh we are doing this. You need to be part of the hearts and minds of basketball. You’ll need to do things at the grassroots level, which is where we have kind of penetrated, right?
So that’s just the thing, the brand trust, brand visibility, things like that, that’s where we can come in, execute on certain projects, you know, just work together. Like I said, the objectives align so there’s not even much to talk about that there. Let’s work.
Are there any plans to expand in the near future? A bigger venue for events? Events in other Nigerian states or African countries?
Definitely, we have those plans. We’ve kind of made partnerships. There’s something called HoopDreams to Africa. We have some partnerships in Kenya. We have some partnerships in Tanzania right now. So we’re looking to set up games there, but for now we’re just working on, you know, cementing the partnerships.
What, what do we have in mind to do there? And those guys are also trying to come to Nigeria. So we want to get things done here first before we move out. So, yeah, it’s in the works.
What would you say the overarching goal for HoopDreams is?
Build a better basketball world in Nigeria. Just to make everything about basketball a lot better.
What does the organization have in store moving forward?
A lot of entertaining basketball stuff. A lot of engaging activity for the top talents in Nigeria, but we’re not just looking at people who are already at basketball playing age. We are looking at stuff to develop kids right now. How we can help people who want to get their kids into the game. How can we give them a sustainable part to make sure the kid learns all the skills they need. To teach young kids, provide a platform for them to compete at that young age, as they move on to secondary school, compete at that level, move on to university, compete at that. Steady pipeline.