Boniface N'dong

Boniface N'dong
Player information
Nickname	Bonuses
birthday	September 3, 1977 (42 years and 363 days)
place of birth	M'bour , Senegal
size	213 cm
position	center
Clubs as active
1999–2000 SpVgg Rattelsdorf 2000–2002 TSV Tröster Breitengüßbach 2002–2003 Brose Baskets 2003–2005 JDA Dijon 2005–2006 Los Angeles Clippers 2006–2007 BK Spartak Saint Petersburg 2007–2009 CB Málaga 2009–2012 FC Barcelona 2012–2013 Galatasaray Medical Park
National team
2005-2011	Senegal

Boniface N'dong (born September 3, 1977 in M'bour , Senegal ) is a former Senegalese-German basketball player. N'dong, whose professional career began comparatively late in Germany , briefly made the leap into the highest endowed US professional league NBA at the age of 28 . After returning to Europe, he played in Russia and Spain , where he won the highest European club competition ULEB Euroleague 2009/10 as well as the Spanish double in 2011 and another championship and cup title with FC Barcelona . At the end of his active career, N'dong won Galatasaray Istanbul's first Turkish championship in 2013 after a 23-year hiatus.

Career

N'dong initially only played basketball in his home country of Senegal before he came to Germany in 1999 and played there in the 2nd basketball league 1999/2000 for SpVgg Rattelsdorf in the south group. With this club he managed to stay up and moved to the regional league competitor TSV Tröster from Breitengüßbach , who had just barely missed promotion to the top German division in the relegation round. In the 2000/01 season they were again second in the group south, while being sixth in the 2001/02 season had nothing to do with the allocation of promotion places. N'dong nevertheless managed to make the leap into the first basketball league through impressive individual statistics with a double-double of more than 19 points and 13 rebounds , after he was signed by the cooperation partner of Güßbacher, the first division club TSK uniVersa from Bamberg . In the basketball Bundesliga 2002/03 , however, he only had eight appearances at the start of the season for the later runner-up due to injury problems on his knees, which is why his contract was no longer extended.

N'dong made his comeback in the 2003/04 season in the French Ligue Nationale de Basket for the first division club Jeanne d'Arc (JDA) from Dijon . In the second half of the season he also came to eight missions, but in which he was able to convince with an average of just under twelve points and eight rebounds, so that he got a contract for another season. For the European club competition FIBA EuroCup Challenge had Burgundian club N'Dong not subsequently notified, so he had to stand by and watch as the team the final against the German representative Central German BC lost. While Dijon won the league cup "Semaine des As" in the final against Le Mans Sarthe Basket , they lost in the first play-off round for the championship against the same opponent. In the 2004/05 season N'dong was used in all championship games, but despite N'dong just under 15 points and 9 rebounds per game, the club missed the return to the championship play-offs. In the European club competition FIBA Europe League 2004/05 they failed in the round of 16 against the later third-placed Russian team BK Chimki . At the African Basketball Championship in 2005 , N'dong reached the final with the Senegalese national team , which was lost to defending champions Angola . Nonetheless, N'dong was voted “ Most Valuable Player ” of the African finals as the player who lost the final .

After his first continuous professional season at the highest level, the success at the African Championship and good performance in the NBA Summer League for the Denver Nuggets , N'dong got the chance to be in the highest in 2005 at the comparatively old age of 28, despite his previous knee problems Prove endowed professional NBA league in the United States . At the Los Angeles Clippers , however, he came in 23 missions to an average of just under seven minutes, so that his career there was already over after one season. After he did not take part in the 2006 World Cup , in which the Senegalese team did not win a game without him, he signed a contract with the Russian club BK Spartak from Saint Petersburg in December 2006 , with which he still played the play-offs of N'dong Superleague Russia reached. After leaving there he got at the end of the season a short-term contract in the Spanish ACB league with Spanish champions Unicaja from Málaga , but he could no longer prevent their elimination in the first play-off round against the main round first TAU Cerámica . Nevertheless, Málaga took him under contract for the following two seasons, with N'dong playing with a German player pass after marrying a German in Spain because of the league's foreigner restrictions. At the international level, however, the team in the highest European club competition ULEB Euroleague never got beyond the second group stage of the 16 best teams. In the national league in the 2007/08 season in the first play-off round, unlike last year, the defending champion and main round first Real Madrid could be surprised, but then again failed in the semi-final series to TAU Cerámica, which this time also won the championship title. In the 2008/09 season, in which N'dong was named "Player of the Game Round" on the 30th matchday, the future champions FC Barcelona was the final destination in the semi-final series. At the African Cup of Nations 2009 it was only enough for Senegal with N'dong to place seventh this time after losing to the later runner-up Ivory Coast in the quarter-finals .

Master FC Barcelona should then be N'dong's new club from the 2009/10 season, with whom he won the highest European club title in the ULEB Euroleague 2009/10 . The team suffered only two defeats on an international level, in the second group stage against defending champions Panathinaikos Athens and in the quarter-final play-off series against eternal Spanish rivals Real Madrid. After they had also won the Spanish cup competition " Copa del Rey de Baloncesto ", they missed the " Triple Crown" and the defense of the national championship title in the play-off final series against Caja Laboral, the new sponsor name of the former TAU Cerámica Association from Vitoria-Gasteiz . In the following season they were able to regain their national championship title and, in combination with defending their title in the cup competition, won the national double, but after being eliminated in the quarter-finals at international level against Panathinaikos Athens, who in turn regained the title in the Euroleague, they missed again the total triumph. In the 2011/12 season they lost the Copa del Rey final against Real Madrid, but the championship title in the final series against the same opponent was successfully defended. N'dong was named player of the round twice this season and won the award as Player of the Month April 2012. In the ULEB Euroleague 2011/12 they moved into the semifinals after only one defeat in the first group stage, where surprisingly the later one Title winner Olympiacos lost by four points. For the 2012/13 season, the now 35-year-old N'dong moved to Turkey , where he won the first Turkish championship title in 23 years with Galatasaray in the Türkiye Basketbol Ligi . At the end of the season, N'dong announced his retirement from active competitive sport.

See also

• List of NBA players from German-speaking nations

Web links

• Boniface Ndong on: NBA website; New York, NY, 2018. Retrieved December 11, 2018.
• Boniface Ndong at: RealGM website; 2018. Accessed December 11, 2018.
• Boniface N'Dong at: Basketball Reference website; Philadelphia, PA, 2000-2018. Retrieved December 11, 2018 (in English).
• archive.fiba.com: Players - Boniface NDONG (SEN) - Overview of participation in FIBA tournaments ( English )
• NDONG, BONIFACE - player profile on the ULEB website (English)
• ACB.COM: Boniface Ndong - player profile on the websites of the ACB League ( Spanish )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Temporada 11-12: Boniface Ndong. FC Barcelona (basketball) , accessed on November 24, 2013 (English, player profile). 
2. ↑ UniVersa Bamberg squad with Ndong complete - Stix new assistant coach. Schoenen-Dunk.de, July 13, 2002, accessed on November 24, 2013 (Medien-Info TSK Bamberg). 
3. ↑ Beko BBL - Player Statistics: Boniface Ndong. Basketball Bundesliga , accessed on November 24, 2013 (profile on statistics pages). 
4. ↑ Boniface Ndong - Dijon - Joueurs - Pro A. Ligue Nationale de Basket , accessed on November 24, 2013 (French, player profile). 
5. ^ Mitteldeutscher BC - SAOS JDA Dijon / FIBA ​​Europe Cup Men 2004. FIBA Europe , March 28, 2004, accessed on November 24, 2013 (English, match report). 
6. ↑ Boniface N'Dong NBA & ABA Stats. Basketball-Reference.com, accessed November 24, 2013 (English, statistics). 
7. ↑ ^{a b} Julio Chitunda: Time to see who will wear Ndong's shoes in ACB. On: On: FIBA ​​website; Mies, Switzerland, September 3, 2012. Retrieved August 30, 2018 (in English).
8. ↑ Pietrus y se Brown despiden del Unicaja, donde Continuarà Boniface Ndong. Liga ACB , 2007, accessed on November 24, 2013 (Spanish, media info Unicaja Málaga). 
9. ↑ Boniface Ndong, MVP del mes de Abril. Liga ACB , April 30, 2012, accessed November 24, 2013 (Spanish, media info). 
10. ↑ Boniface Ndong - Turkish Basketball League Player: 2012-2013. TBLStat.net, accessed on November 24, 2013 (English, individual seasonal statistics). 
11. ↑ Boniface Ndong, un grand champion se retire! Newsbasket-Beafrika.com, June 17, 2013, accessed November 24, 2013 (French).