The NBA has closed NBA Academy Africa in Senegal, ending the league’s only dedicated elite basketball academy on the continent eight years after it was established to develop promising young players.
The programme was launched in Senegal in 2017 before moving into a dedicated facility in Saly the following year. It offered selected prospects from across Africa access to basketball coaching, education, physical development and life-skills training as they pursued professional careers.
About 110 students went through the programme during its operation, with some progressing to American colleges, professional clubs and the NBA. Among its graduates are Cameroon’s Ulrich Chomche and South Sudan’s Khaman Maluach, who both went on to reach the NBA.
The closure follows a change in the NBA’s international player-development strategy. The league is shifting its elite academy operations to a new global facility in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, which is being developed as a central hub for prospects from different parts of the world.
The Abu Dhabi academy is expected to provide basketball training and academic support to high-school-age players, including prospects recruited from outside the UAE. The move will therefore bring the NBA’s elite academy model under one main international facility rather than maintaining separate regional academies.
The decision has drawn concern from some former members of the Senegal academy staff, who have questioned the effect of losing a high-level development facility based in Africa.
Former academy performance and lifestyle adviser Michel Chikwanine said the closure had affected players who had been building their careers through the programme. Former head of academic planning Michael Abbott also questioned the decision, according to reports.
The NBA has maintained that its broader involvement in African basketball will continue despite the closure. Its programmes on the continent include the Basketball Africa League and Basketball Without Borders, alongside other grassroots and player-development initiatives.
For young African players, however, the change removes a locally based NBA academy that offered elite training without requiring prospects to leave the continent at an early stage of their development.
The NBA’s new Abu Dhabi model will now become the main global academy pathway, leaving African prospects to pursue opportunities through the league’s other programmes or compete for places within the new international setup.
