How to become a professional basketball player in South Africa.

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Below is probably the most potent set of links for any kid wanting to become a professional basketball player. Ideally, a kid must start at 14 years old or younger to play basketball. This is because after 15 years, it gets a bit difficult for South African kids to pick up fundamentals & basketball handles so they get left behind by players who started playing earlier.  Even though the distance in ability can be made up for by daily training, it's better to start sooner for the early-start advantage. American kids start younger but I started at 13 years (a bit late) & became fairly good even though I stopped playing after highschool. 

I'm of the belief that anyone of any height can play basketball even though it's usually players over 1,8 metres tall who make it to the NBA. I believe if you're a short player & are very quick, good handles & a high-arching shot - you can compete with the best players in the world. Short players have less weight to carry so in theory, potentially have less injuries & can steal the ball easier because of their height while taller players have obvious & well-known advantages to their game.

In South Africa there is highschool basketball but unfortunately it's mostly in urban or suburban schools. There used to be provincial trials & national trials when I was growing up but I'm not sure if they still exist. But making the provincial team doesn't guarantee you being a professional basketball player, it simply means you're one of the best players in that age group, at that specific time in your province. So be consistent & improve your game for trials. Simply put, if you want to get started in basketball, get into a basketball playing school first or, at least, join a local team or academy. 

Practice alone on your skills & at about 17 years post videos  of your best game highlights, skills & stats. You never know, someone could be watching & it creates an easy backup for your videos & public link for anyone who wants to watch how you play. 

Because South African basketball is in such a bad state, some might suggest you leave South Africa for USA or Europe after matric to play college basketball & hopefully make the G-League or NBA league in the USA or one of the professional leagues in Europe. But if you can't, you best join a basketball-playing college or university. Keep an eye on trials throughout highschool & varsity. At varsity, there are usually SALGA & USSA games played among universities, you simply need to shine there & be in contact with a BNL team if you don't get noticed. Hopefully, by now you would've been scouted if you're one of the better players or, if you're not scouted by your late twenties (24-26 years) stick to being an online basketball content creator if you were not selected. N. B.: South African basketball has a tendency to be nepotist & favour certain people whether it be by race or ethnicity so keep in mind that you can believe that you're better than a guy who got scouted ahead of you but it's usually because they fit the genetic phenotype, not because of their talent. 

THE WORLD'S BEST BASKETBALL LEAGUES

Hopefully, this helps your 10-14 year old become a professional basketball player. 

BELOW IS EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW TO GET INTO THE AFRICAN BASKETBALL WORLD. Watch these videos, at least, three times each. 

FIBA zones map for continental tournaments. 

• Intro to Basketball

• Basketball fundamentals

• FIBA Rules 

Basketball positions explained

• Michael Jordan masterclass 

• Kobe Bryant workout 

• Wilt Chamberlain 

• 1-on-1 

• NBA Game winners 

• Afrobasket Final 2025 

• FIBA World Cup Final 2023 

• Olympics Basketball Final 2024 

• FIBA Intercontinental Cup: Al Ahli SC (African Champions) vs Flamengo  

• Euroleague Final 2022-2023 season

• Euroleague game winners 

• How to become a professional basketball player in Europe

• Art of Dunking 

A few Mpofana basketball players (& one West African import).

Get scouted: 

- NCSA  

- NSR 

- Africa Basketball Academy

Other tips: 

• Stretch & stay off your legs when not training or playing i. e. get plenty rest & sleep. 

The reason for the ethnonationalism campaign in Africa.

“We have artificial 'nations' carved out at the Berlin Conference in 1884, and today we are struggling to build these nations into stable units of human society.” - Mwalimu Julius Nyerere

I think most of our leaders try to discourage tribalism in Africa for a benevolent reason & while anti-tribalism sentiments are to encourage unity in our states, these sentiments are often in vain because tribalism has not ended in decades after the age of African independence.

I always maintain that certain ethnicities should simply govern themselves because under the rule of others they fall into disarray & become disorderly but to this some say, "Africa never had borders." Sure, there were no physical walls or barbed wire borders except in a few places like Benin or various city-states across the continent but it was known & general consensus that certain rivers, forests or mountains were borders to certain kingdoms, chiefdoms, confederacies & empires. Just because there were no man-made borders, it doesn't mean that Africa was one united country. There are places with no borders between two or more countries in Eurasia but it is known that crossing a certain river or mountain range means you're in a territory of a nation that is not the one you just left.

Now, seeing the ethnic conflicts & tribal tensions in Africa - you'd think a few leaders would think, "No, the Berlin Conference made a big mistake here" & correct those borders & sure, quiet a few leaders have spoken on Berlin Conference borders but they either are too overwhelmed by the task of reclaiming/relinquishing territory, do not have legislative power or their voice is so meek in a distant rural region that it is easily ignored by the larger state they are in.

FAMILIES DIVIDED BY THE SOUTH AFRICA-MOZAMBIQUE BORDER

I often see how ethnostates in Europe govern themselves & notice how they make rules for the benefit of the people in the land & not just laws that prevent individualism like in Africa. How is it that it makes sense to make laws that make your people struggle instead of systems, legislature & infrastructure that allows them to thrive & live freely? It is counterproductive to create a land that you yourself would not want to live in as a commoner.

Now, people will say that an ethnostate Africa is "fanciful" or "An ethnostate Africa will never happen" but just because you've accepted being cooked in a melting pot, doesn't mean that it's good for you or benefits you in the long run.

Former president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere on the borders Africa was left with after the 1964 Cairo Declaration. 

President Paul Kagame on the borders that made Belgian Congo. 

A passage from writer, Ngugi wa Thiong'o's writings citing how other continents have ethnonational borders but Africa is stifled from doing so.

I've gone through a whole lot of benefits of the ethnostate for years. It is common logic that an ethnostate works but would take some shifting of the "struggle mentality" of Africans to a progress & solutions mindset. When you see other ethnicities having proper schools, I doubt you'd let your own ethnic group go to school in roofless mud schools. This is one of the main benefits of an ethnostate, it allows you to work towards your people's cause instead of getting a Ferrari for your youngest son while the people you govern are starving. 

I don't care what political system the new ethnostates in Africa use after we finish our reverse Berlin Conference in Accra or Addis Ababa. The nations will choose what works best for their people & ethnicity whether it's a president, monarch or collective group of chiefs or elected leaders... It makes sense to have an ethnicity govern itself than be ruled by someone of another ethnicity who would ultimately develop tribalist sentiments in time & stifle the progress of certain ethnicities/nations just out of spite that his own ethnicity isn't as developed as others. Because of Berlin Conference borders, you become stuck with a president who hates your ethnicity/nation for developing while their own are incapable of doing so for one or another reason. Just unprovoked hatred because of being born your ethnicity. It would be better if this man were just in charge of their own people & left your people alone, separate the country if need be. Silent, secret, tribal hatred festering unnoticed is worse than open campaigning for self-determination of ethnicities & nations. 

This is what we notice when we campaign for an ethnostate Africa, it's not because we're being rebellious or vain - it's because ethnicities governing themselves was the norm in Africa. Even in greater empires, the individual tribes within that empire were given a decent amount of freedom to govern themselves so they do not starve or become dependent on an unsustainable, centralised state where there was no motorised transport, information relay & telecommunications networks to make governing the land easier. Each tribe in a greater tribal confederation would have it's own set of warriors which could be of use to the tribe or the greater nation, a decentralised national unity. We discard ancient African governance systems as outdated but they made a lot of sense when you look at them in the context of what individuals played in the community of certain nations. 

Multicultural/multiethnic rule is discredited when you rule in a way that diminishes a people's freedom, you risk being seen as a foreign entity & not beneficial towards the people you rule. We need to understand that tribalism is not always just open disdain of other ethnicities but also ruling a certain people in a way that they live in squalor under your rule. 

We need to take a look at the idea of reversing the Berlin Conference borders & even if we do not make a Pan-African Conference to Repartition Africa, we have an idea of what Africa would look like with country borders defined by original ethnic rule. 

Repartition Africa 

AN IDEAL AFRICA

An ideal Africa.

If it were up to me, which it obviously isn't, this is how I would remake Africa: 

1) Rename the continent: Simply call Africa KWATU, a Pan-African name derived from the majority indigenous languages in Africa & mutually intelligible words in many African languages. This would ensure that Africa is in charge of it's land. All uses of the word Africa,  would be changed to Kwatu e. g. the African Union ~ Kwatu Union, the African Cup of Nations ~ Kwatu Cup of Nations, African ~ Kwatuan & so on... 

2) Repartition Africa: Simply repartition Africa back to it's ethnic borders. Tiny ethnicities can form a federal alliance among ethnicities with mutually intelligible languages. For example, a Nguni Federation among my own people because Nguni languages are mostly mutually intelligible (they understand each other's language for the most part).

Ethiopia would get access to the Red Sea for it's massive population. It is obscene that a country that important in Africa & that populous has no sea access. Unite the divided Somalias including the Somalian enclave in Ethiopia. Give Biafra / Igboland, Hausaland, Yorubaland the Sokoto Caliphate, Benin Kingdom, Ashanti Kingdom & Songhay state(s) independence. Return lands stolen from the traditional leaders in Africa. Eswatini would get it's Delagoa Bay coast & lands in South Africa back. Lesotho would get its land in the Free State province back. M'thwakazi would become a sovereign state. Everyone would get their ethnic lands back. Decrease ethnic wars & tribalism by a massive margin.

After we have sorted this thorny issue of ethnicity & have possibly decreased tribalism & ethnic conflict by a whole lot, we could get to the ideological part of our land i. e.
3) Kwatuism: Food security (agriculture & livestock), shelter (subsidised state housing for all), national unity & a single state bank for each land to gain economic sovereignty. Kwatuism is a centre-right political ideology created with Africans in mind.

4) Rename the Indian Ocean to the Swahili Ocean across all African educational structures. This ocean does not belong to India or Indians. The Indians & others can call it the Indian Ocean, Africans can refer to it as the Swahili Ocean.

5) Language: Each nation in Africa after the ancestral lands are repartitioned would have it's own national language. Instead of using a single Pan-African language, there could be well-trained bilingual translators. Most commonly; excessively fluent people in Swahili & Arabic, Swahili & Hausa, Yoruba & Arabic would be used as these are the most spoken languages in Africa, each African country would have it's own set of translators for diplomatic & international duties depending on which nations they'd need to communicate with. I imagine people bilingual in Hausa & French, Lingala/Kikongo & Portuguese, Swahili & Mandarin/Japanese could be of use to their states. 

The problem with a Pan-African language is that it makes it easy to control a false narrative & propaganda across Africa by outside forces. Different languages would make it less easier for a corrupt, foreign idea to spread across Africa.

6) Religion: Africans must embrace their own indigenous faiths which would be written down as the national faith & law of the land. Either that or one of the Abrahamic faiths closest to Africa (Judaism or Christianity).

7) Rail, mail & transport:
• An interconnected rail system across Africa,
• an airline run by the African (Kwatu) Union which would replace all African airlines,
• a unified set of road rules & driving licence procedure,
• a unified mail system for all of Africa.

WHAT CAN AFRICA STANDARDISE ACROSS THE CONTINENT?

8) Military: I believe Africa would be better having regional or strategic military alliances with select African countries than a massive united African military which may require too much finances. But a standby force to deploy across trouble spots in Africa may come in useful & the newly created ethnostates could give something as small as 0,05% of their GDP towards the revamped standby force, for example. N. B. : The African Union already has a standby force. 

7) Currency & trade: Currency today requires a lot of technology & instead of using VISA & MasterCard for our bank card payment systems, we could use the African-made M-Pesa system which we would revamp & add some extra encryption measures to it. This system would then be easier recognised by global traders if it is implemented across Africa as the primary method of trade. Our continental currencies could simply be two currencies, the proposed Ng'ombe & Lami. 

By this, Africa could completely decolonise & achieve economic stability. And perhaps even create, maintain & fund lofty ambitions such as a Martian, Lunar & subaquatic colony for the future survival of Africa (Kwatuans). 

And for those who believe Africa is too small to have ninety or so countries because of the Mercator Map projection, Africa can comfortably have two hundred average-sized countries within it. Africa only looks small on map projections, it is a very big continent. 

It may sound like a dream but I wrote it step-by-step in point form like this because I know that once you complete one fundamental step in a larger undertaking, the momentum builds & it becomes easier to achieve other objectives. 

National Unity 

Why aren't more countries designed like this?

Some interesting websites...

Here are some interesting websites to look at whenever you feel like you have some free time: 

• Notable people (See where the world's famous were born):  https://tjukanovt.github.io/notable-people 

• Worldwide radio (Listen to radio stations around the world): www.radio.garden 

• 3D imagery with phone camera (Make 3D images with your surroundings): www.lumalabs.ai 

• Keyboard design (Create your own computer keyboard): www.keyboardsimulator.xyz 

• Track live cyber attacks (See where hacking & cyber attacks are happening worldwide): www.digitalattackmap.com 

Mpofana origins: 3000 B. C. to modern day.

So-called Nguni (Ngoni) clans are all claimed to originate from ancient Cameroon (Mbo/Swazi groups), ancient KoNgo (Nguni/Ntungwa groups), Great Lakes region (Shaba/Zizi groups) of Africa & Tanzania (Hlubi) by anthropology. They arrived in southeast Africa in waves from circa 200 AD to 1200 AD, merging with the San who had lived in the western side of the Drakensberg (Ukhahlamba) Mountains for 25 000 years & possibly another Homo Sapien group which lived around Durban for 77 000 years. The unknown Durban sapien group is probably the same group that made Inzalo yeLanga (Adam's Calendar) 75 000 years ago in the Swazi territory of Mpumalanga province in South Africa. 

The Mpofana name likely originated from Eswatini & surrounding Swazi regions. They likely arrived in Ezinqoleni in the mid 19th century. Before then, the likely came from the Rozvi region of Zimbabwe & Mozambique (pre-1200 AD). And before then, they originated from Benue region of Cameroon/Nigeria (2000-1000 BC) & arrived at the Great Lakes region (Urewe/Buganda) by 500 BC. Before that, likely originated from ancient Mali circa 3000 BC. 

Migration of the Mpofana across Africa since 3000 B. C.

RESEARCHGATE: Around 500 B.C., Uganda was undergoing a profound transformation as Bantu-speaking agriculturalists migrated into the southwest from West-Central Africa, introducing early iron-smelting & settled village life. This technological leap allowed them to clear dense forests & cultivate crops.

The landscape of the region around 500 B.C. was characterized by a distinct demographic & environmental shift:

Bantu Settlement & Agriculture: Arriving from West Africa via the Great Lakes region, these Bantu speakers transformed the once-forested environment into a forest-savannah mosaic. They brought advanced mixed farming practices—cultivating bananas (matooke), raising livestock like goats & chickens, & forging iron tools. 

A journey from Ezinqoleni to southern Mali would take three months on foot in the modern day.