BAL to honor Dikembe Mutombo throughout 2025 season

Published on April 3, 2025

The Basketball Africa League plans to honor late African basketball and NBA legend Dikembe Mutombo throughout its upcoming fifth season.

The BAL announced Thursday that it will honor the Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer with a “DM55” jersey patch on all players jerseys worn this season. Mutombo, who died from brain cancer on Sept. 30, 2024, wore No. 55 and his number was retired by the Denver Nuggets and the Atlanta Hawks. The late BAL ambassador and investor will also be honored with a moment of silence before the league’s group play begins in Rabat, Morocco; Dakar, Senegal; and Kigali, Rwanda. The BAL season opener is Saturday night between Mali Stade Malien and Nigeria River Hoopers in Rabat.

Mutombo, who was a regular at BAL games, played for the Nuggets, Hawks, Houston Rockets, Philadelphia 76ers, New York Knicks and New Jersey Nets during an 18-year NBA career that landed him in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015. The 7-foot-2 center was a three-time All-NBA selection and was second in NBA history in blocked shots with 3,289. The former Georgetown University star was also a two-time NBA J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award winner for outstanding service and dedication to the community.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver unveiled the NBA Africa Dikembe Mutombo Humanitarian Award on Feb. 15 in San Francisco at the 10th annual NBA Africa All-Star Luncheon. The NBA described the award as “a new annual honor that will recognize a person or an organization that works to advance health, education or economic opportunity across the continent of Africa.”

Following his retirement from the league in 2009, the Democratic Republic of Congo native was the NBA’s first global ambassador, as appointed by late NBA commissioner David Stern.

Continue reading on website
Other news

Will ‘Trill Burgers’ Hit An HBCU Campus? Bun B Wants It To Go Down

April 3, 2025
Bun B has yet to open a Trill Burgers location at a historically Black college or university (HBCU), but he would love the opportunity to do so.The UGK rap legend was recently asked about Trill Burgers’ partnership with the University of Houston. While it’s not Texas Southern University—the HBCU in his hometown—Bun B (real name Bernard Freeman) is open to expanding into HBCU territory. The challen

Halle Berry Says The Oscar Was Not Designed For Black Women In New Documentary

April 3, 2025
As the only Black woman to have won an Oscar for Leading Actress, Halle Berry urges Black actresses to stop coveting the Academy Awards in the recently released documentary, “Number One on the Call Sheet.”“The system is not really designed for us, and so we have to stop coveting that which is not for us,” the Catwoman actress says, according to The Guardian. As Berry speaks in Part Two of the two-