Denver Nuggets of America ace, Caleb Agada’s wonderful three-pointer against Phoenix Suns in the ongoing summer series of USA’s National Basketball Association (NBA) is echoing in reviews of pre-season activity in God’s Own Country.
While many NBA fans might have missed the feat achieved by the Nigerian men’s basketball national team, D’Tigers’ star against the eventual losing finalists, pundits and analysts have gone the extra mile to highlight the lad’s effort.
It has been deemed no mean feat against a side that roared into the NBA’s Western Conference Finals for the first time in 11 years with a testy 125-118 victory over Denver that completed a four-game sweep in the play-offs.
Megasportsarena.com reports that Agada’s team survived the loss of star Jamal Murray to a torn ACL on April 12, winning 13 of 18 to close out the regular season and taking care of Portland Trail Blazers in five games in the opening round.
However, when second scoring option Porter tweaked his surgically repaired back in the first half of Game 1 against Phoenix, it was one injury too far for Nuggets to overcome, much to the dismay of Denver’s coach, Michael Malone.
It came just a year after Agada had a strong season playing for Hapoel Be’er Sheva of Israel last season, averaging 22.9 points and 6.5 assists a game for the club.
It was enough to earn him a spot on The Nuggets’ Summer League team in Las Vegas, USA, few weeks after he scored 17 points and was 3-of-3 from deep for D’Tigers in their upset win against the Americans in a pre-Olympic exhibition game.
Ace basketball writer, Tony Jones of The Athletic celebrated the 26-year-old 6’5″ guard, who played his college ball for University of Ottawa in Canada and is now excelling in the ongoing summer series of USA’s NBA.
Before now, Agada played college basketball for the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees from 2012–2017, then starred professionally in Spain and a little bit in Canada, following which he headed to Isreal for the past two seasons.
He was awarded back-to-back national U SPORTS Defensive Player of the Year honours in 2015-16 and 2016-17 and, at the conference level, Agada was named an OUA First Team All-Star in three consecutive seasons from 2014 to 2017.
In the 2016–17 season, he averaged 14.9 points, 6.4 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game as a fifth-year senior, earning Second Team All-Canadian honours and he had been previously called up to play for a Canadian national basketball team side.
He was called up to play for the Nigerian national basketball team during the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup qualification games, during the February 23–24, 2019 qualifying window in Lagos, he averaged 4.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 4.3 assists.
He was invited for the Nigerian 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup preliminary squad and, while he failed to make the final list of players, he bounced back to lay claim for a shirt at the recent 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.
A citation by Yash Matange added in part: “Professionally, he’s played for three franchises in three years – Prat (Spain), Hamilton Honey Badgers (Canada) and Melilla (Spain) – before finding a home with Hapoel Be’er Sheva.
“As part of the Israeli franchise, Agada led the league in points (22.4) and steals (2.4) including an impressive 43-point game against the illustrious franchise of Maccabi Tel Aviv. NBA future? 2021 could be the breakout year for Agada.
“He reportedly worked out for the Utah Jazz. Having gone undrafted in the 2016 NBA Draft, Agada has previously played in the NBA Summer League (2015 – Memphis Grizzlies & Orlando; 2017 – Sacramento Kings).”
