Serge Ibaka

The Congo-born Serge Ibaka won a silver medal with Spain at the 2012 Olympic Games after being granted Spanish citizenship in July 2011, having lived in the country for years playing professional basketball. A year earlier he won the gold medal in the EuroBasket 2011 where Spain beat France in the final.

Ibaka started his professional basketball career in France with a second division team at the age of 17, before he moved to Spain and joined CB L’Hospitalet (2007-2008). The first athlete from the Republic of Congo to be drafted, Ibaka was selected 24th overall pick in the 2008 National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Draft by the Seattle SuperSonics, but they kept him in Europe and available to leave for the NBA annually, so he signed a three-year contract with Ricoh Manresa from the ACB League in Spain (2008-2009). In July 2009, Ibaka signed a contract with the Oklahoma Thunder (the relocated Seattle SuperSonics) and by 2012 he was in the NBA Finals, where Oklahoma was beaten in five games by the Miami Heat. In 2016, he was traded to the Orlando Magic and on 14 February 2017, Ibaka was traded to the Toronto Raptors in exchange for Terrence Ross and a future first-round draft pick. On 4 November 2018, Ibaka made his first 14 shots on the way to a career-high 34 points in a 121–107 win over the Los Angeles Lakers, finishing the game 15 of 17 from the field (and became the first player to start a game 14 of 14 from the field since Shaquille O’Neal did it in February 2006). In June 2019, Ibaka helped the Raptors defeat the Golden State Warriors in six games during the NBA Finals to win his first NBA championship.

Born in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, Ibaka is the third youngest of 18 children growing up the war-torn nation where often he had no electricity or running water. His parents were both basketball players who fell upon untimely demise as his mother died when he was eight, and his father was held as a political prisoner attempting to move his family away from the war. His brother Igor played at Oklahoma State University, in Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA. Ibaka’s full name is Serge Jonas Ibaka Ngobila, and he speaks four languages: French, English, Spanish and Lingala (a Bantu language).