So much basketball talent has come out of Africa that assembling a list of the continent's best players in the past 25 years is a matter of cutting down a long list to include the most elite in the NBA and international play.
RotoWire, home of your best NBA betting promo codes available, has assembled this NBA All Quarter Century team for players who were born in Africa and/or represented African nations in international play.
Africa NBA Quarter Century Team Members
This list was assembled exclusively for RotoWire as part of our analysis for online sportsbook sites customers and hoops fans alike.
Gabe Vincent (2019 to Present)
Point guard Gabe Vincent spent his first four seasons with the Miami Heat and the past two with the Los Angeles Lakers, averaging 7.2 points and 2.0 assists a game since starring at UC Santa Barbara and entering the NBA as an undrafted free agent. Vincent was born in California but has represented Nigeria on an international level. He averaged 11.4 points a game at the 2019 FIBA World Cup – Nigeria was eliminated in the group stages, but it did well enough to qualify for the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Luol Deng (2004 to 2019)
Born in Sudan, Deng represented Great Britian in international play (he left Africa with his family when he was a child and his parents were granted asylum in the UK) but has come to symbolize a young nation's rise to basketball prominence. Deng is the president of the South Sudan Basketball Federation and has largely funded the team himself in international play. South Sudan made its Olympic debut at the Paris Games in 2024, defeating Puerto Rico in group play on its way to a ninth-place finish – a great feat for a nation that only declared independence from Sudan in 2011. His post-playing achievements almost overshadow a 15-year NBA playing career that included 10 seasons as a swingman with the Chicago Bulls and averages of 14.8 points and 6.1 rebounds over 902 games.
Pascal Siakam (2016 to Present)
Cameroon native Pascal Siakam has been to the NBA Finals twice – once as a member of the Toronto Raptors and this season with the Indiana Pacers. The forward has steadily improved to make himself a standout player and a star worth watching for NBA betting sites customers. He was named the league's Most Improved Player in the 2018-19 season, capped by a memorable playoff performance (19.0 points and 7.1 rebounds a game over 24 games) as Toronto won its only NBA title.
Serge Ibaka (2009 to 2023)
As a forward, Serge Ibaka was a huge component of several playoff teams in Oklahoma City and Toronto, including his stint as Siakam's teammate on the 2019 champion Raptors. A native of Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo, Ibaka became a naturalized citizen of Spain in 2011 and has represented that nation on the world stage. At 35, he now plays for Real Madrid Baloncesto and, as such, those seeking non-NBA action at sports betting apps can still take an interest in Ibaka's games.
Joel Embiid (2016 to Present)
The biggest part of "The Process'' by which the Philadelphia 76ers went from laughingstock to contenders, Joel Embiid was the No. 4 overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft out of Kansas. The 7-foot center was injured in college and missed his first two pro seasons, contributing to a fear that he'd be another basketball big man too brittle to have a long career. But Embiid defied the skeptics and became the league MVP in 2022-23, part of a glittering career in which he has averaged 27.7 points and 11 rebounds a game to become an NBA betting apps mainstay. That scoring average is fourth best all time, behind only Michael Jordan (30.1 ppg), Wilt Chamberlain (30.0) and Luka Doncic (28.6). Embiid was born in Yaounde, Cameroon, but chose to represent Team USA in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
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