This story originally appeared in Mile High Sports Magazine. Read the digital edition.
Destiny, and destiny alone, brought Emmanuel Mudiay to the Denver Nuggets.
From the very beginning, the odds that the young native of the Democratic Republic of the Congo would one day be called upon to save the Denver Nuggets were long.
Astoundingly long.
Mudiay’s unlikely journey to Denver doesn’t begin with the 2015 NBA Draft, which was unpredictable in and of itself. No, his path starts much further back than that.
Born in Kinshasa, Zaire in 1996, Emmanuel Mudiay quite literally arrived in the midst of the Great War of Africa, the deadliest conflict worldwide since World War II. By 2008, through whizzing bullets, disease and starvation, the war – also known as the Second Congo War – had caused 5.4 million deaths. A resident of what’s now known as The Congo until 2002, Mudiay was not one of them.
In 2001 Therese Kabeya, Emmanuel’s widowed mother, decided she’d like to take her family to the United States, a safer place in which to raise her three sons. According to the United States Department of Homeland Security, there were 600 refugee or asylum cases filed from the Democratic Republic of the Congo that year; there were just 260 arrivals. Therese Kabeya was one of them; just over a year later, Emmanuel and his two older brothers joined her in Dallas, Texas.
As Americans, Emmanuel and his brothers took to the sport of basketball. According to a National Federation of State High School Associations survey, more than 500,000 boys participated in high school basketball in 2010. Emmanuel was one of them, and under his brothers’ tutelage, he earned a spot on the varsity basketball team at Arlington’s Grace Preparatory Academy as a freshman. By 2014, he was one of 24 players invited to play in the McDonald’s All-American game.
Instead of taking the traditional next step of playing college basketball in the States, Mudiay opted to sign a $1.2 million contract with the Chinese Basketball Association. According to FIBA, the global governing body of the sport of basketball, there are approximately 450 million basketball players worldwide. With only 360 of them playing in the National Basketball Association at any given time, the odds of being an NBA player are approximately 1.25 million-to-1.
Mudiay was the “1.”
Barely 19 years of age, and despite questions that arose from a serious ankle injury suffered in China, Mudiay was about to become the first foreign-born player ever drafted into the NBA directly from the Chinese Basketball Association.
Long before his decision to play in China, however, it was widely believed that Mudiay would be the first pick in the 2015 NBA Draft anyway. Originally, he was expected to attend one year of college at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where he’d further hone his skills as a point guard under legendary coach Larry Brown; then he’d turn pro.
Tim Connelly, the general manager of the Denver Nuggets, had been gathering information on Mudiay for quite some time. He’d watched him in high school, talked to the staff at SMU, seen hours of tape of his games in China and picked the brain of the strength and conditioning coach for the Guangdong Southern Tigers, Mudiay’s team. Connelly also had, as he calls it, “a cheat,” from a reliable source – his brother, who is with the Phoenix Suns and had scouted Mudiay extensively.
“I felt pretty good about the intel,” Connelly says.
But “having intelligence” on a player who might be the top pick in the NBA Draft is historically worthless in Denver. The Nuggets have a history of bad luck in the NBA’s draft lottery. Since it’s inception in 1985, the highest the Nuggets had ever selected was third. In the 2015 lottery, Denver had just a 4.3 percent chance of landing the top pick. The chances that Mudiay would slide to the seventh pick – of which the Nuggets had a 60 percent chance of landing – were slim, too.
But, that’s exactly what happened.
Somewhat predictably, the bouncing balls slotted Denver at No. 7. The Timberwolves, who possessed the best odds, were awarded the top pick.
Not in need of a point guard, Minnesota took power forward Karl-Anthony Towns with the first overall pick. Next up, the Lakers scooped up Ohio State freshman point guard D’Angelo Russell, who had shot up the draft board after an impressive showing in the NCAA Tournament. Philadelphia, who had selected point guard and eventual NBA Rookie of the Year Michael Carter-Williams in 2013, passed on Mudiay as well, instead opting for Duke big man Jahlil Okafor.
Picks four through six were anyone’s guess. The Knicks, much to the chagrin of their fans, selected 7-foot-3 Latvian Kristaps Porziņģis. Orlando continued the trend of taking foreign-born players by grabbing Croatian swingman Mario Hezonja.
Back in Denver, fans quietly feared that the Nuggets would have taken either Hezonja or Porziņģis; the franchise had a propensity for drafting foreign-born players with upside and those two fit the bill. For those familiar with the team’s history, Hezonja and Porziņģis “felt” like future Nuggets. But when New York and Orlando eliminated them as options, there was a solid chance Mudiay could fall to the Nuggets.
The only team standing in the way was Sacramento. Word throughout the league was that the Kings wouldn’t take someone they hadn’t worked out. That belief held true as GM Vlade Divac took Willie Cauley-Stein at No. 6. Against long odds, Mudiay was headed to Denver to save a team in need of saving.
“I didn’t know I was going to drop to seventh,” Mudiay says.
How long were the odds? Long in that Mudiay survived his own upbringing at all. Long in that his mother – one of some 75 million citizens of The Congo and one of just 600 refugees – actually made it to U.S. soil. Long in that he picked up an American game so quickly he was able to turn pro by the age of 18 and then ascended to the greatest basketball league in the world by 19.
Long in that he wound up in – of all places – Denver.
To say that his chances of being right here, right now, with the hopes of redirecting the fortunes of a recently downtrodden basketball team were “one in a million” would be a gross understatement. Connelly boils it down to even simpler terms.
“It was serendipity. We got lucky.”
***
Emmanuel Mudiay was drafted by the Nuggets on a Thursday and was flown into Denver the very next day for his introductory press conference. He was greeted by Nuggets executives, new head coach Michael Malone and media relations director Tim Gelt.
As is the norm, Mudiay fielded questions from the gathered press and was then shuffled around to various interviews for television and radio. Between interviews, he peppered Gelt with questions about his new team.
What’s the furthest the Nuggets have ever advanced? Who is the best player in franchise history? Which Nuggets have appeared in the most All-Star games?
“He was so inquisitive and curious about everything Nuggets,” Gelt would later say.
The following Monday, Mudiay was scheduled to appear on Xfinity Live with local sports anchor Vic Lombardi. A limousine was sent to pick up the Nuggets’ new star. Waiting inside was Gelt, who had a gift for him.
“Here you go; I’ve got a present for you,” Gelt said handing Mudiay a book.
It was the Denver Nuggets Media Guide.
“All those questions you were asking me the other day, the answers are all in here,” Gelt said holding up the book.” This has everything you need to know about the organization.”
It was something Gelt had never done before. He’d been with the Nuggets for 16 years and never once had a rookie come across this way. Sure, players had been given media guides before for various reasons, but this guide was both given and accepted as a gift.
“I knew he would genuinely get something out of [a gift] like that,” says Gelt.
“I’ve got to learn as much as I can about the tradition of the team,” Mudiay says. “Either you change it, or it stays the same. So I’m big on changing it, especially because we haven’t won a championship.
“I’m not knocking us, but if it was the Lakers, they’ve got 16 championships, so you have to keep that going. But over here, you’ve got to start something new.”
Mudiay, opted not to go to college – for now – but he is very much a student. As Nuggets strength and conditioning coach Steve Hess says, Mudiay is an “advanced thinker.”
When he departed for China, his mother, who’s always been “big on education,” suggested that her son enroll in some classes. He convinced her that he was not ready for both school and professional basketball, but he made her a promise that, like both of his brothers, he too would one day go back and get his college degree.
He is constantly observing, asking, listening, watching.
Upon his first visit to Denver, Connelly invited his first pick to dinner. Mudiay sat with the GM and his wife and asked one question after another.
What about this guy? What about that guy?
“He’s a student of the game,” says Connelly. “Quite frankly, if you’re not that way at that position, you’re going the wrong way.”
Over the summer, Nuggets veteran point guard Jameer Nelson received plenty of text messages from his new teammate.
“He’s a question asker,” says Nelson. “Questions about small things. And that matters. It shows you he wants to be good.
“He kind of surprised me with some of the things he said – in a good way.”
Nelson sees his role as that of an equal, and says that leadership can only take place when someone wants to be led. Mudiay should be fine with that arrangement.
“I’m always a guy who likes to be around older people,” Mudiay says. “Because I feel like they’ve been through what I’m about to go through.”
When he’s not asking, he’s watching – documentaries mostly. In China, he would hole up and watch the NBA documentary series Hardwood Classics. He would study the greats of the game – Jordan, Magic, Bird, Barkley, Iverson.
“It’s not just basketball,” he says. “I watch documentaries on a lot of things – Peyton Manning, Muhammad Ali is my favorite… he grabs my attention a lot.”
When Jo Jo White, who finished his NBA career in 1981, some 15 years before Mudiay was born, was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame, Mudiay tweeted: “Jo Jo White had game!”
“That’s pretty impressive for a 19-year-old,” says Connelly, who’s 39. “I’m sure he Googled him or YouTubed him. It’s pretty neat the access guys have now to all that historical footage.”
It’s Hess, though, who probably spends more one-on-one time with players than anyone in the Nuggets organization. And if there’s one person in the NBA who understands and appreciates work and work ethic, it’s Hess. He’s been with the Nuggets for 19 years and he’s seen everything from Kenyon Martin’s rehab of two microfracture surgeries to players who never made it.
“I’ve done this for so long and I’ve heard over a long period of time that ‘guys love to talk.’ A lot of times that doesn’t equate to what they’re willing to put in,” says Hess. “Exactly what Emmanuel says he’s willing to put in, he’s willing to put in.”
Alongside Hess in the weight room, Mudiay does more than sweat. He’s involved both mentally and physically. He’s asking. He’s listening He’s learning.
“In the realm of what he wants to do, he thinks through the questions that he asks, then he listens to the answers that you give him,” Hess explains. “And then he wants an explanation of why you’re giving that specific answer.
“He buys in to what you’re doing, but he wants to know why.”
When the Las Vegas Summer League games concluded, Nuggets players were instructed to take at least a week off. Mudiay did that, but then flew to Denver where he spent August and September in the gym. Connelly had evaluations waiting for all his players – things to work on before training camp.
Being a rookie, Mudiay was certainly not perfect. He could work on his outside shot, his threes and his pull-up jumpers. He could cut down on the turnovers. He could improve his understanding of the defensive rotations. For the most part, however, he was good. Very good. He’d averaged 12 points and nearly six assists per game. He added 3.5 rebounds, too.
But when he sat down with Connelly for his evaluation, the rookie began listing all the things he didn’t do well.
“He was one step ahead of us,” Connelly says. “He’s probably his own harshest critic.”
Given the Nuggets’ recent situation at point guard, it’s hard to avoid a comparison to Ty Lawson. While talented, Lawson’s off-the-court antics were ultimately his undoing in Denver, and ultimately the reason that the job of starting point guard is now Mudiay’s to lose.
From the outset, it looks like the 19-year-old rookie is light years ahead in terms of maturity when compared to the player he’s replacing. No one within the organization speaks openly or negatively about Lawson – they’re wisely letting a dead dog lie – but they’re happily singing the praises of their rookie.
“He’s 19 going on 34,” says Connelly. “His life experiences have given him a maturity that belies his actual chronological age.
“He’s sincere. His mother did a fantastic job. It’s fun to see a kid who gets it.”
***
The phone rings at Ray Forsett’s Dallas home. It’s closing in on midnight but the coach still answers.
“Call anytime,” he says. “I’ll always talk about Emmanuel… I love that kid.”
In the life of a 19-year-old budding NBA star – and make no mistake, that’s the expectation – it stands to reason that a high school basketball coach knows him just about as well anyone. Forsett coached Emmanuel’s brothers and remembers “the gym rat” as a seven- or eight-year-old.
“He always had a ball in his hand,” says Forsett.
When Emmanuel was an eighth grader, Forsett used to tease him – “You might be pretty good if you’d come and played with us,” he’d tell him.
That’s ultimately what Emmanuel did; as a freshman he enrolled in Arlington’s Grace Preparatory Academy just like his brothers and under the tutelage of Forsett.
But he did not always like Forsett.
Early on, the coach made his players write down their goals. Emmanuel wrote that he wanted to play in the NBA and take care of his family. Forsett always kept that in his back pocket.
“I would challenge him,” says Forsett. “‘Hey, you don’t love your mom unless you get in here and take jump shots. You don’t really want to do this like you said you want to do it!’
“And he would take it to heart. And he would just keep working and work harder. At first he didn’t like the method I was using to give him a push, but as he got older he said, ‘Coach, man, I look back at that and you made me tough and mentally strong and made me reach my goal.’”
It would have been easy for a young Mudiay to let things go to his head. He was just that good.
As a freshman, he quite literally took over the TAPPs 4A state championship game. With Forsett’s star player, Isaiah Austin, serving a suspension on bench, and senior Jamal Branch, who had carried the team in the first half, out with an injury, the second half belonged to Mudiay. There, he scored 14 of his game-high 16 points en route to the state title.
“I remember looking down the bench at my coaches and saying, ‘Hey listen, this young fella is going to carry us to a state championship,’” says Forsett.
Then in 10th grade, there was a tournament in Las Vegas. After the game, a reporter from Coast 2 Coast Hoops was interviewing Mudiay. The conversation was cut short, however, when Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch jumped onto the set. Lynch had just watched the sophomore take over a game.
“This the man right here! This the future!” Lynch told the reporter. “He’s the smoothest yangster on the scene!”
The reporter than asked a more talkative than usual Lynch to break down Mudiay’s game – “What’s he good at?” he asked.
“Everything,” Lynch said. “Shit, he was all over!”
Lynch was popping off, but he also wasn’t. He knew what he was talking about. There was a time during high school when Kentucky’s John Calipari would text Mudiay every day.
None of that, however, went to his head.
“People don’t understand,” says Forsett. “He’s very deep in his faith. He’s lot like my brother. He goes to church, church and work. That’s a fact.”
Forsett’s younger brother is Baltimore Ravens running back Justin Forsett, who also attended Grace Prep. Justin earned a trip to the NFL Pro Bowl in 2014.
Having some knowledge of pros sports, Ray Forsett couldn’t believe that his former star fell to seventh in the 2015 NBA Draft. And it’s Forsett who doesn’t let him forget it.
“[Emmanuel] carries a chip,” Forsett says. “And I make sure to remind him of it. I tell him, ‘Everybody thinks these guys are better than you. We need to let them know who’s the best player in the draft.’”
Connelly puts it differently.
“If you’d have told me six months ago that Emmanuel Mudiay would be a Nugget,” he said in September, “I’d have told you we’d moved up in the lottery.”
But what do the Nuggets really have? Mudiay’s early returns have been impressive, but he’s still a 19-year-old rookie.
“This league is not going to take it easy on you,” says Malone, who has been coaching in the NBA since 2001. “No one is going to feel sorry for you because you’re a rookie. I talked to him about Steph Curry, talked to him about Chris Paul, talked to him about LeBron James, and how hard they worked every single day – during practice, before practice, after practice, in the weight room. For none of those guys has it happened over night.”
Malone has coached each of those players, but has a special relationship with Paul, a seasoned veteran Malone says “pays it forward.” When the Nuggets played the Clippers in the preseason, it was Paul who took time to share a few words of wisdom and encouragement with his rookie counterpart. Afterwards, the Clippers guard reported back to his old coach.
“[Chris and I] talked about [Emmanuel] after we played, and all the things that he was excited about,” says Malone. “And [Chris] says, ‘Hey, this kid’s got a chance to be a heck-of-a player.’”
Whether that’s true or not could determine if the Denver Nuggets, a team that’s been devoid of a superstar since Carmelo Anthony departed for New York, will ever win that elusive NBA title, a mark the franchise has never reached.
“He’s going to take the Nuggets to new heights,” says Forsett. “That’s a great kid. He knows what he wants in life.”
Hess, who has seen countless Nuggets rookies come and go, believes Mudiay is as special as his high school coach does.
“One problem I have is that I’m overly optimistic,” says Hess. “But here’s what I think: I think [Emmanuel] has an innate desire to be great. I honestly believe he’s going to do whatever it takes to be great. He doesn’t just talk about being great; he’s actually doing the work to be great…
“I honestly believe that he has the making of someone who can be absolutely, unequivocally be great.”
And only great can save the Nuggets.
