Made by Basketball, AKA MBB, is a Johannesburg-based Basketball Africa League team led by former Dallas Mavericks assistant coach Sam Vincent, and they're hoping to get South African hoops in the spotlight for the right reasons.
JOHANNESBURG -- On a chilly morning at Mandeville Sports Club in Bezuidenhout Valley, South Africa, Made By Basketball (MBB) coach Sam Vincent paces the floor as his players do their stretches ahead of the start of practice.
The former Mavericks mentor gives each member of his MBB Blue Soldiers team an ultimatum to ponder: Either they do their stretches properly and head into Kigali, ready to be called upon at crunch time in MBB's games at Kigali's Nile Conference (May 17-25), or they spend weeks on the sideline with injury... and pass the opportunity to be a hero to somebody else.
Plenty of factors beyond the players' control have already impacted their BAL journey. For one, the Cape Town Tigers - last year's semi-finalists - fell into financial dire straits, clearing the path for a new club to lead South Africa into the BAL.
Then, rivals and defending BAL champions Petro de Luanda signed arguably the Tigers' best player over the past two years, Samkelo Cele, and MBB were powerless to compete for his services.
The path to June's playoffs in Pretoria will be tough in Rwanda, but for all Vincent's players cannot control, the 1986 NBA champion (as a guard for the Boston Celtics) is not about to let them lose sight of what they can.
Vincent told ESPN: "South Africa plays hard - that's the message I'm giving to the guys. Things happen in a game - mistakes are made. That's sports, but your effort - your willingness to play hard on every single play offensively and defensively - those are things you can control.
"I want fans to say that the South African team went on the floor, competed and played hard every single minute that they were out there. No matter what happens, that's something people can be proud of."
When Vincent discusses the identity of South African basketball, he is referring to a culture which he helped shape. Only once in their men's national team's history have they gone to AfroBasket and not come out of it with a losing record. That was in 2003 - under Vincent's tutelage - when they finished ninth in Egypt with three wins, including one against Senegal, and three losses.
Just as he helped shape much of what is worth celebrating about South African basketball, so too did the country play an integral role in some of his proudest achievements off the court, as well as on it.
"When I talk about some of those wonderful memories in South Africa, I have two kids that were born in Cape Town, which always makes South Africa very dear to me and one will be coming over at some point to play a little basketball [after the BAL]," Vincent said.
However, the basketball environment Vincent has walked into in South Africa now is very different from the one in which he led the national team through their best AfroBasket campaign 22 years ago.
African basketball has grown in leaps and bounds since then, with the NBA opening its first office in Johannesburg in 2010 and launching the BAL in partnership with FIBA in 2021. However, South Africa's scene has stagnated and fallen further behind.
They last participated at AfroBasket in 2017, but the Tigers offered brief hope of a competitive representative at club level. They reached the quarter-finals of the 2022 and 2023 BAL tournaments and then the semi-finals in 2024.
What happened to the Cape Town Tigers?
The Tigers withdrew from last year's national club championships amid financial difficulties. Then-CEO Raphael Edwards resigned amid allegations of missing funds, unpaid player salaries and incorrect reporting of payments to the BAL.
Some of the Tigers' debts related to their time in the league itself, while others related to FIBA's Road to BAL qualifiers. According to sources within the club and the league, all debts under the league's jurisdiction have now been settled - paving the way for the Tigers to start from scratch again and field a team at future BAL tournaments.
FIBA Africa has never commented on allegations that the club failed to pay salaries during the Road to BAL, which is not under the jurisdiction of the BAL itself.
Regardless, significant obstacles remain, with the club's board still far from united. Club founder Lari Kangas confirmed that Edwards is no longer a board member or director, but matters related to his 28.58% shareholding in holding company Severus LLC are still unresolved.
Kangas had alleged in a LinkedIn post in March 2024 that Severus had received $1,712,272 over an 18-month period - the majority of which he alleged had not been accounted for by club management under Edwards, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing to ESPN.
MBB's humble beginnings
When ESPN spoke to MBB owner Cyril Shabalala in February this year, he said such sums of money were well beyond the realm of what his club had raised.
Shabalala told ESPN: "No, I don't think we have that kind of financial backing that the Cape Town Tigers had. I think, from our side, based on the type of club we are and where we come from, it could either work against us or it could actually work for us in terms of the things that we're trying to do - gradually getting to that kind of financial backing.
"I definitely think that either our performances leading up to the BAL or our performances at the BAL are definitely going to put us in a position for somebody that's going to look at us and say: 'Hey; Maybe I can invest in this club. I like what they're trying to do. I like their culture. I like everything about them.'"
It has been 15 years since Shabalala - a former South African national team player himself - first set up MBB, but it has only become a competitive club in the last year and a half.
Shabalala recalled: "The club has been around since about 2010. Rather, let me say the team has been around since 2010, but also, it was kind of an informal thing.
"I moved from Durban [to Johannesburg]. I wanted to carry on playing basketball [and] met a couple of guys from KZN (KwaZulu-Natal) that moved here for work. I was just like: 'Guys; let's get together and put this team together and play in Joburg as a KZN team that's based in Joburg.' That's basically how we started."
In early 2023, Shabalala's friends in business planted a seed by telling him that he had the potential to turn the club into a serious outfit. A year later, it was up and running.
He explained: "I think towards the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, that's when I kind of just decided: 'You know what; let me formalise it...
"We did the admin. It's myself, Lindo [Sibankulu], Solomzi [Ngonelo], Celumusa [Khumalo] - the four of us who had been part of the original MBB team in 2010."
The move up to the big leagues
Shabalala then turned to his corporate friends and asked them to put their money where their mouths were. The first major coup was the signing of then-Tigers captain and current MBB captain and guard Lebesa Selepe in March 2024.
According to ESPN sources, Selepe was unhappy at the Tigers, who at that time were in the middle of a player payments crisis. The players had been pressured into agreeing new contracts with the club days before the start of the 2024 BAL and preparations had been disrupted.
He stayed with the Tigers to help them through the 2024 Kalahari Conference in Pretoria under coach Florsheim Ngwenya, but left the club before their playoff push which ultimately saw them reach their first ever semi-finals.
The skipper needed little convincing to join MBB, Selepe told ESPN: "Cyril was a very good friend of mine and so I explained where I was in my basketball career and that I'd like to still play in the BAL, but I'd like a more comfortable situation.
"He bought in because he's an ambitious person by nature, so he said: 'Let's do it. Let's get a team ready to go to the BAL - to participate in the Club Champs and go to the Road to BAL.' It's just fantastic that it all came together."
Selepe's predecessor as Tigers captain, power forward/center Pieter Prinsloo, also jumped at the chance to join a new club.
MBB won the South African National Basketball Club Championships in August, but were unsure if they were going to play in the Road to BAL tournament until two weeks before the Elite 16 tournament in Kenya. As a result, they had limited time to get a roster together.
Despite some impressive highlights - notably from veteran Neo Mothiba, who rolled back the years with some fine performances - MBB did not qualify for the BAL through the tournament. However, they were ultimately handed a wildcard.
The likes of Selepe and Prinsloo are joined by younger players including former Cape Town Tigers trio Nathi Sibanyoni, Ben Myburgh and Liam Reid. In addition, MBB have signed the highly-rated Nino Dim, who has dual South African-Nigerian nationality.
Alongside them is small forward Mothiba, who at 43 years old is a veteran of South African basketball and an idol even to many established professionals, but has yet to play in the BAL.
Given that Pretoria will be hosting the playoffs from June 6-14, it was ultimately seen as beneficial to hand a South African team an opportunity to make it. However, MBB can expect no favours in the Nile Conference in Kigali (May 17-25).
They will face conference hosts APR, Libya's Al Ahly Tripoli and Kenya's Nairobi City Thunder. In order to make the playoffs, MBB need a top two finish or at the very least, third place and a better record than FUS Rabat - who came third in the Kalahari Conference with a 2-4 record and a -19 points difference.
Given that the Sahara Conference's third-placed team, Kriol Star (3-3) have already assured themselves of being one of the two best third-placed sides, FUS are the benchmark in terms of the bare minimum that will be expected of MBB should they sneak into third place.
Vincent's international recruitment drive
In the likes of Selepe, Prinsloo and Mothiba, Vincent has local leaders who can set the standard in terms of work ethic and transmitting his core values to younger teammates.
Vincent is bringing in foreign players to bolster the team and told ESPN: "We've got one player who played in the NBA G League - his name is Teafale Lenard. He played for the Texas Legends. He's a 6-foot-6 or 6-foot-7 small forward. I feel confident that he is going to give us some very good experience. He played in a very competitive league this last season.
"We've got a [former Rivers Hoopers and City Oilers shooting guard/small forward] named Robinson Odoch [Opong]. He's an excellent three-point shooter; he's going to come in and give us a little bit more support on the outside shooting.
"Then, our point guard - Jovan Mooring - is from the US. He played in the G League. He's a little bit older and more mature. These are players that come in and give us a lot of experience and a lot of talent."
Belgian, Gambian and Senegalese small forward Omar Thielemans was announced as another MBB signing in March, with Zimbabwe's Dyvonne Pfachi also with the team.
MBB are not expected to be a significant threat to the best teams in Africa, but neither were 2024 bronze medallists Rivers Hoopers or semi-finalists Cape Town Tigers, or 2023 bronze medallists Stade Malien.
The BAL has seen its fair share of underdog stories, and Vincent is taking one step at a time. He has been around the greats of the game, playing with Michael Jordan at the Chicago Bulls and coaching the Charlotte Bobcats in 2007-08, but his message for his players is as strikingly simple as ever.
"Anything can happen in a basketball, whether it's in the NBA or NCAA - a lot of times, the team that wins is the one who plays the hardest," Vincent said.
"If you play hard, control your mistakes and you do what you do well, you've got a chance to win. That's the message I'm going to try to teach."
The BAL airs on ESPN's channels in Africa (SuperSport 218 and 219 and Starsat 248).