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The basketball court, DeSagana Diop explains, is in Parcelles Assainies, the neighborhood in which he grew up in Dakar and the unlikely starting point for a nine-year N.B.A. career. Diop’s parents, he says, still live in the neighborhood. The space was just dirt and trash before Diop dedicated the court last week. “Before we did it, it was nothing,” Diop said by telephone from Dakar, the capital of Senegal, in western Africa. Its opening symbolizes another small step on a continent where the N.B.A. is attempting to take a great leap. The N.B.A. has extended its influence to Asia, and India is next on its ambitious docket. But the league has recently increased its efforts in Africa. New York Times

DeSagana Diop 

Diop views himself from the same prism as many of his campers. He is luckier than most and did not scour for his next meal. His father was a high school principal and his mother a teacher. But like some of the campers, Diop ventured into basketball only after he grew too tall for soccer. Fall discovered Diop and funneled him to the United States and the high school basketball powerhouse Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, which has produced numerous N.B.A. stars. Diop progressed on the basketball court and, even more important, in the classroom. He was Oak Hill’s valedictorian. “He just needed to be given the tools, but you could tell that he had a lot of upside,” Fall said. “It was just a question of if he could get to the right place to learn the game.” New York Times

DeSagana Diop