Nigeria - Oyedeji task NBBF on local coaches for D’ Tigers

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Former Nigerian NBA star, Olumide Oyedeji, has called on the board of the Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) to look inwards in her efforts to pick a new head coach for the men’s basketball team, D’ Tigers.

Oyedeji, who is presently holdliday in Nigeria after concluding his season in the Korean League with Samsung Ducks, told Freethrow that he is not for another foreign coach because the American, Sam Vincent, NBBF hired only used and dumped Nigeria before heading to Senegal.

He noted that while he would not rate any other American the NBBF may have in mind, same with Sam Vincent, he would rather the Federation consider a Nigerian for the job because African basketball is not the same as where those foreign coaches are coming from.

"I have worked and trained under American coaches and would say that they are good as far as the game is concerned, but they lack knowledge of African basketball. On the African continent, basketball takes a new dimension that many foreign coaches find strange. We need to go to the All Africa Games in Algiers and win gold this time around and then go to Angola to get a ticket for the Olympics," he said.

To further butress his call for a Nigerian coach, Oyedeji maintained that there were Nigerians that have taken the country to great heights in the game and that we also have players that have seen the game at different levels that can handle the national team.

" I tell you something today, basketball no longer belong to the Americans. See the performance of America in the past few years at both the Olympics and World championships and you will agree with me that Europe have caught up with them."

The former Seattle Supersonics and Orlando Magic player said there was need for Nigeria to attend these two important championships with players that are dedicated to the service of fatherland, noting that some of the players that represented Nigeria at the World championships in Japan last year, were players that knew next to nothing about the history basketball in the country.

"As a player who has played in several parts of the world, I believe only a Nigerian coach knows where the shoe pinches, when you are involved in an international engagements," he stressed.