A Huge Bargain

At those words, Cole turned his eyes to the computer. The email contained a tournament entry form with nothing but basic information: Ibaka was from the Republic of the Congo's youth team, seventeen years old, 2.06 meters tall, listed at power forward. It wasn't much to go on, but Cole understood Yang Shuai's meaning right away: this Ibaka was the player they needed. He didn't know why Yang Shuai would know anything about a Congolese player, but Stephen Curry and Russell Westbrook had already earned him a full measure of trust in Yang Shuai. He sat down and went carefully through the rest of the email — the time and place of the tournament, and so on. When he finished, he looked over at Yang Shuai. "The tournament is being held in South Africa. When the time comes, I'll go with you." "That would be perfect." Yang Shuai nodded quickly. With Cole coming along, a great deal of back-and-forth communication in between would be cut out. The tournament was in mid-May. They arrived at the host city, Durban, South Africa, on the very day it began. Durban was South Africa's largest seaport, a city with a thriving tourism industry and convenient transportation. After leaving the airport, they dropped their things at the hotel and headed straight for the tournament venue — Kings Park Stadium. The stadium was huge, but only a handful of spectators had come. The sport that truly ruled in Africa was soccer; basketball was a niche game there, let alone a youth-team tournament. The opening game of the group stage pitted Angola against Congo. Angola's standing in African basketball was strikingly similar to China's in Asia — both were in a league of their own. You could see a hint of it in their youth teams: compared with the Congo squad, every Angola player was bigger and more imposing. Yang Shuai quickly spotted Ibaka on the Congo side. Ibaka's face wasn't as distinctive as Curry's or Westbrook's, but his physique made him stand head and shoulders above the rest of the Congo squad. Especially that wingspan — the man was a walking "long-armed gibbon." Once the game began, Angola seized the upper hand almost immediately. In the basketball world, Africa and Asia held nearly identical places — both bringing up the rear. But their weaknesses were very different in kind. Asian basketball fell short in physical gifts; African basketball was just the opposite — the gifts were there, and the skills were missing. So the basketball played here came down to whoever had the better raw talent. When the game reached the middle of the first quarter, Ibaka began to show his physical gifts. On three straight possessions he blocked his opponent's shot and forced a change of possession, leading his team on a run of fast breaks. "So that's Ibaka?" Cole's eyes lit up. When Yang Shuai confirmed it with a nod, he began to understand why Yang Shuai had been so excited back then. Ibaka's nose for defense was first-rate. It had nothing to do with positioning or judgment, and it was more than physical talent — it was an invisible, inborn gift, the same kind of thing as basketball IQ. Combine that with Ibaka's physical tools, and he had a chance to become an NBA-caliber defender. Before long, though, Cole had to revise that opinion. Ibaka next backed his man down and scored twice in the low post on footwork alone, then even buried a midrange jumper from eighteen feet out — with textbook form, no less. That made Cole sit up straight. Until now, every African player who made the NBA — the likes of Dikembe Mutombo and Manute Bol — had made his living on defense. But an African player with basketball skills already at the youth-team stage? The next Olajuwon? Few African players had ever reached the NBA, but quite a few players of African descent had. At bottom, basketball skill is something you have to drill from childhood, and Africa was simply too poor — most kids there couldn't even count on enough to eat, so where would they find the time to work on basketball skills? Yet Ibaka seemed born with a gift. "So how did you know about him?" Cole turned to him, face full of wonder. "I just happened to see some video of him online." Yang Shuai cooked up an excuse on the spot. Fortunately Cole didn't press. By now he was completely absorbed in Ibaka's talent. In the end, Congo pulled off the upset and beat Angola. In his very first game for the national team, Ibaka exploded for a triple-double of 27 points, 19 rebounds, and 12 blocks. "We have to get him to Wake Forest!" By the time the game was over, Cole could hardly wait. Right after it, they went straight to the Congo team's locker room. Things got a little awkward, though: Cole walked in holding out his business card and was thrown straight out by the Congolese head coach. "Let me try." Yang Shuai entered the locker room alone. "American?" The Congolese head coach was so dark-skinned that with the lights off you couldn't see him at all — but wariness was written all over his face. "No — Chinese." The moment Yang Shuai said he was Chinese, the man relaxed at once, flashing two rows of gleaming white teeth as he shook Yang Shuai's hand. After a brief exchange, Yang Shuai walked Ibaka right out of the locker room. It left Cole utterly floored. He clearly didn't follow politics, and had no idea about the "China–Africa friendship" of this era. They sat down in a café inside the arena. Congo was a French-speaking country and Ibaka spoke no English, so they found an interpreter as well. The talk that followed went far more smoothly than they'd imagined, though. The moment he learned that Yang Shuai and Cole were scouts from the NAA, and that they were willing to offer him a scholarship, he nodded and agreed on the spot. And his reason was as plain as could be: "I have seventeen brothers and sisters. If I can get a scholarship, all of them will be able to eat their fill." Cole was stunned by the seventeen brothers and sisters. Yang Shuai wasn't surprised at all. The poorer people are, the more children they have — which was exactly why Ibaka had agreed to them so readily. To make sure Ibaka's signing went smoothly, Yang Shuai and Cole stayed on in South Africa for a few days. Events proved the choice prescient, because Ibaka had been far too good in this tournament. He carried Congo into the semifinals for the first time in its history, and that drew the attention of French scouts. The French scouts offered him a contract. It was only with a club in one of France's lower divisions, but it was still a professional contract — and playing in France would put no language barrier in his way. "If you make the NBA, your family won't just eat their fill — they'll live like rich people." Once Ibaka began to waver, Yang Shuai painted him a bigger vision. Become an NBA first-round pick and you'd be a millionaire overnight; and when your rookie contract ran out, you'd have a chance to become a multimillionaire. Those words steeled Ibaka's resolve. If the goal was the NBA, the road through the NAA plainly offered the better chance. After the tournament, Cole and Yang Shuai traveled with Ibaka to Congo, where they met his father. Ibaka's father wholeheartedly supported his son going to play in the NAA. And it was in their later talk with him that they learned where Ibaka's basketball skills had come from. Ibaka's father — and Ibaka's late mother too — had both been basketball players for Congolese national teams; only, one had played for the Republic of the Congo and the other for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. What they shared was that both taught their children to change their fate through basketball. The other children never took it seriously. In a place like Africa, basketball couldn't fill your stomach, and it wasn't the sort of thing that shows results in a short time. Only Ibaka took it to heart. He carried a basketball everywhere he went and trained every chance he got. His mother died of cholera when he was eight; at nine, with the country in turmoil, he took to begging on the streets; at twelve, his father was arrested and thrown in prison. Through it all, he never changed. So it wasn't some extraordinary gift at all — it was the result of relentless persistence in the depths of desperation. In the blink of an eye it was August, and Wake Forest University's training camp opened a little earlier than in past years. And the competition was fiercer than ever. The entire old starting five was gone. The newcomers wanted to seize this once-in-a-lifetime chance and step straight into the starting lineup, while the sophomores and juniors who had long been biding their time on the bench had no intention of simply handing it over. To keep the competition fair, Prosser ran full-court scrimmages after each day's practice, dividing the players into random combinations and grading their performances. As the scrimmages went on, Westbrook and Curry quickly rose above the rest. Westbrook had visibly bulked up, a whole size bigger than before, which made his finishing on drives far steadier, and his shooting had also taken a clear step forward. And Curry — he had grown from 6 feet (183 cm) to 6 feet 2 inches (188 cm)! His shooting release was higher than before, and he was harder to defend. More important still, it moved him from "point guard only" to "combo guard" — a way around his relatively weak playmaking that let his real strength, scoring, come to the fore. The transformation in both players left the coaching staff, Cole included, half unable to believe it. Only a single summer had passed, and it gave them the feeling of having gotten a huge bargain. Only Yang Shuai wasn't surprised. Without this kind of improvement, how could a pair of three-star high school recruits ever have grown into NBA lottery picks? All the same, their progress left him looking forward to the new season more and more.