By Michalis Gioulenoglou/ info@eurohoops.net
Riga, Latvia – In a country where football casts a shadow on the remaining sports, Adem Bona followed a different path.
He chose basketball. And even though he had to wear his first basketball shoes as a gift from a friend, his story has a lyrical narrative.
A kid who wanted to play basketball and did, moving from Nigeria to Turkiye and to an ongoing journey in EuroBasket 2025.
“It was amazing, growing up in a country where football is the most dominant sport. I grew up playing football, and I played basketball only on the weekends, and I had to learn real quick, and I had to pick up the sport real quick,” he recalled his first basketball steps in an interview with Eurohoops.
“I only had like a short basketball career in Nigeria. I only played for a year before I left home to move to Turkiye. My first basketball shoe was given to me by a friend. I used to just go out there, just be by myself. Basketball it’s just something I really like because of like the pace and the tempo, so it kind of drew me to the game when I started playing for the first time. It was really amazing,” he continued.
“This is the time for us to get the gold”
Childhood allows many dreams. Development and playing for the senior national team of Turkiye was not on his mind. But now there is a goal. What is it? Of course, a gold medal.
“That wasn’t the first thought when I started playing basketball,” said the 22-year-old big sharing his path to the senior national team of Turkiye, “When I moved to Turkiye, that became one of my dreams. When I played for the senior national team, I wanted to win medals with them.”
“We won a couple of medals in the youth category. We won the silver and bronze, and I feel like this is the time for us to get the gold. And we have even bigger goals, to make it to the Olympics, which we haven’t made in a while. So yeah, I still got more goals I want to accomplish with the national team,” he added.
The two families
His family? He plays to give back to those supporting him. And that’s not it.
“That’s the only reason why we do this,” he told Eurohoops on family being his motivation, “I don’t do this for myself. I do this for the people that come before me and people that’re gonna come after me. So, it’s my family and my future family.”