- Spencer Dinwiddie aims to get the Nigerian passport to play for this country at the Olympics in Tokyo.
- Brooklyn Nets player didn’t manage to earn an invitation for the USA national team.
- Dinwiddie is currently posting the best stats in his career.
- Nigeria is the top African team and is qualified for the Tokyo Olympics.
Dinwiddie Becoming a Nigerian
According to the well-informed sources from the NBA, Brooklyn Nets guard, Spencer Dinwiddie, is in the process of obtaining the Nigerian passport. After the initial rumors and speculations, the player himself confirmed this news through social networks.
Dinwiddie was hoping to see his name on the list of the potential candidates for the Team USA. However, after finding out that Gregg Popovich won’t be counting on him, the guard made a different strategy.
The Nigerian national team already secured its place in the Olympics, and Dinwiddie reportedly has the spot on the roster there, but needs to take care of all the paperwork before finalizing the plan.
The Los Angeles-born is currently the best player of the Brooklyn Nets and their leader in the absence of Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. Many would say that the 27-year old is the heart and soul of the crew, and that the executives made a huge mistake with bringing Irving during the free agency. Not only did Uncle Drew miss the majority of the season because of an injury, but the team played better with Dinwiddie as the point guard.
In 20 games with him available, the Nets are 8-12, and in the rest 22-22. That was mostly because of Dinwiddie, who posted some fantastic numbers when being a starter. In 31.2 minutes per night, the 38th pick from the 2014 draft yielded 20.6 points and 6.8 assists, reaching the 10th place in the All-Star voting among the guards in the Eastern Conference. When separating only the games in which Irving didn’t play, his stats even better.
The Nets are 30-34 overall occupying No.7 in the East, and will most likely enter the playoffs if NBA decides to resume its activities. They will be fighting with the Orlando Magic, who is half a game behind, for that seventh place.
Nigeria on the Rise
When mentioning the Magic, one of their players is already a part of the Nigerian national team, and that is Al-Farouq Aminu. Apart from him, Minnesota’s Josh Okogie is one more NBA individual who is playing for this African country.
Nigeria is one of the most successful basketball nations in Africa, and over the past decade, they are dramatically improving their results and the overall quality of the performances. At the moment, we have several dozens of players from Nigeria who are playing Division I NCAA basketball and all of them are helping this country become a respectable force in the basketball world.
During the past February, the Nigerian Basketball Federation hired former Cleveland Cavaliers head coach Mike Brown as the HC of the national team. Brown, 50, is Steve Kerr’s assistant in the Warriors. Some are suggesting that it is possibly his idea to recruit players from the NBA to come to join him and boost Nigeria’s chances for some notable result.
It won’t be odd to see more athletes doing the same thing as Dinwiddie, all in order to appear at the biggest sporting event in the world, the Olympic Games.
