Ghana has a solid reputation for producing athletes that go on to have extremely successful careers for top soccer clubs, but what about basketball?
There have been some great basketball players from Ghana over the years too, with three of them reaching the NBA.
Ben Bentil
At 2.06m (6 ft 9 in), Ben Bentil is a giant player who has carved out a career in the Turkish Basketball Super League following a US college career and a very brief spell in the NBA. He was born in Ghana and moved to the US at the age of 15, with his athletic ability leading him to a scholarship at Haverford School in Pennsylvania.
Bentil excelled at soccer and basketball, which eventually led to him moving onto a basketball scholarship at Providence College, where he racked up an average of 6.4 points before finishing his freshman year strongly.
He then had an excellent sophomore season where he scored an average of 21.1 points and 7.7 rebounds before deciding to forgo the last two years of college to enter the 2016 NBA draft, in order to help his family.
The Boston Celtics selected him as the 51st overall pack but he was waived just a few months later, after playing in 3 preseason games. After trying to win a deal with the Indiana Pacers, Bentil eventually headed to China before returning to the NBA with the Dallas Mavericks and then the San Antonio Spurs, before playing in several European leagues.
Amida Brimah
This player joined the short list of NBA players born in Ghana, when he made his debut earlier in 2021. Brimah played his college basketball for the University of Connecticut, helping the Huskies to win the 2013-14 NCAA Championship and scoring an average of 6.7 points overall.
After leaving college, Brimah wasn’t picked in the 2017 NBA draft but later joined the Chicago Bulls to take part in the Summer League that year. Later in 2017, he joined the San Antonio Spurs’ training camp before heading to Europe to play with Partizan in the Serbian league.
In the time since then, he has played a few games with the Spurs, as well as trying out with the Indiana Pacers. His few NBA games with the Pacers produced 2.6 points on average from 5.8 minutes per games, but he was waived before this summer’s training camp and it isn’t clear where he will be playing his basketball in the future.
Yakuba Outtara
The other Ghanaian player to attempt to carve out a career in the NBA, Outtara was born in Tepa and started playing professionally in the French LBA Pro A league. He was named as a French Pro A All-star and won the Leaders Cup with Monaco in 2017.
That same year, Outtara signed a two-way contract with NBA team the Brooklyn Nets, which was the first time a player born outside the US had signed a deal of this type. He was contracted in such a way that he had to split time between the Brooklyn Nets and the Long Island Nets of the G League. Injury stopped him getting much of a chance and he was waived at the start of 2018.
Since then, he has gone back to France and also spent some time in the Liga ACB in Spain. Despite having some excellent players, Ghana has no international men’s team. This has led to Outtara playing in the French national team.
While he technically never played in the NBA, his time in the US means that we can class him as a player who reached the top level.
It’s true that Ghana has never been home to one of the top 10 greatest NBA power forwards of all time, but the sport has some popularity in the country.
So, who will be the next Ghanaian to reach the NBA? Will we see someone reaching new records?
Hopefully the next talented young player will make the breakthrough soon.