One of the basketball coaches in Nigeria and founder of Raptors Basketball Academy, Mr. Charles Ibiziakor has admonished the basketball ruling body in the country, Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) not to abandon home base players as the body currently engaged the foreign base players to execute all its matches.

Speaking to Somolu Newspaper on Thursday at the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos, he said Nigeria settling for foreign base players was not a bad idea but should not be at the detriment of the home base players as this could spell doom for the game in the country.

“When we had full homegrown basketball players, Nigeria ruled the continent of Africa for more than a year and records are there for reference”. he stated

“Creating enabling environment for the game to strive is the ideal thing and we hope and believe the body in charge will do the needful”.

Meanwhile, he stressed further that the stakeholders should look into how best the game of basketball can be developed to the fullest right from the grassroots in order to achieve the goal optimally.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s national men’s basketball team, D’Tigers, could field a complete roster of current NBA players at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo according to the Team Manager, Musa Adamu with 12 NBA already lined-up.

D’Tigers’ 12-man roster for their last international outing at the FIBA World Cup last year marked the first time Nigeria would have six current and former NBA players compete for the country at a global event.

The benefits were clear as the D’Tigers finished the 32-nation tournament as Africa’s best-placed team in 17th place to earn the continent’s sole ticket to the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.