This year the NBA will have 125 international players from 40 countries and territories across six continents. Mouhamed Gueye is the only player in the NBA who is from Senegal.
Mouhamed Gueye is a rookie for the Atlanta Hawks this season after being drafted out of Washington State this past June with the 39th pick in the second round of the NBA draft. Mouhamed is a 6′ 10″ big man who excelled at Washington State after playing his final two years of high school basketball with Prolific Prep of Napa Christian.
Mouhamed is from Dakar Senegal which is located on the coastline of Western Africa. He comes from a family that loves sports and he grew up playing soccer, but was encouraged by his mother to play basketball because of his height. He is the youngest of four siblings and credits his older brother as his biggest influence for his desire to play basketball.
In 2019 Mouhamed’s basketball coach connected him with Prolific Prep of Napa Christian. Prolific Prep of Napa Christian is a small school located in the Napa Valley that has an elite basketball program which at the time had produced two NBA players Josh Jackson and Gary Trent Jr. Later that year Mouhamed moved to the United States and enrolled at Prolific Prep of Napa Christian.
Prolific Prep has had many families in the Napa Valley host players in their home for the entire season, Heather and Robert Nations did just that for Mouhamed Gueye and it changed all of their lives forever. Mouhamed moved in to the Nations home and very quickly looked as if he had been their his entire life. Having such a solid foundation at home with the Nations made it easier for Mouhamed to excel at school in the classroom and on the basketball court.
The 2019-2020 Prolific Prep team was loaded with talent. They had future NBA star Jalen Green, Coleman Hawkins (Illinois), Mawot Mag (Rutgers), Frank Anselem (Georgia), Nimari Burnett (Michigan), Jordan Pope (Oregon State), Saba Gigiberia (USF), and a young Mouhamed Gueye. The team had an incredible season winning the Grind Session Championship, but the end of the season was hampered by COVID-19.
COVID-19 cancelled so many sports around the country in 2021, but Prolific Prep was part of the Grind Session and they created “bubbles” like the NBA had done and were able to have an entire season. Mouhamed was paired with maybe the best front line in high school anywhere on the globe with himself, Nate Bittle (Oregon), and Adem Bona (UCLA). Playing an entire season against future NCAA Division 1 athletes and possible NBA players made Mouhamed’s game flourish. Mouhamed had an incredible year and accepted a scholarship at Washington State University.
In his two years as a Cougar Mouhamed dominated the PAC 12. As a freshman he averaged 7.4 points and 5.2 rebounds and made the All Freshman team. In his second season head coach Kyle Smith centered the offense around Gueye and he averaged 14.3 points with 8.4 rebounds a game. He was named to the All PAC-12 first team and chose to enter the NBA Draft.
This is the opening week of NBA play for the 2024 season and their are many people in Senegal, the state of Washington and the Napa Valley watching ESPN and checking social media on Mouhamed Gueye and the Atlanta Hawks. There are 125 NBA players from countries around the world this season, but only one player is from Senegal, Mouhamed Gueye.
