Gani Lawal

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Basketball player
Gani Lawal
Lawal in the jersey of the Yellow Jackets in 2009
Player information
Full name Gani Oladimeji Lawal Jr.
birthday 7th November 1988 (age 31)
place of birth College Park , Georgia , United States
size 206 cm
position Power Forward / Center
college Georgia Tech
NBA draft 2010 , 46th Pick Phoenix Suns
Club information
society EA7 Emporio Armani Milan
league Lega Basket Serie A
Clubs as active
2007–2010 GT Yellow Jackets ( NCAA ) 2010 Iowa Energy 2010–2011 Phoenix Suns 2011 Zastal Zielona Góra 2011–2012 Xinjiang Flying Tigers ( ChBA ) 2012 Zastal Zielona Góra 2012 Chorale Roanne Basket 2012–2013 Acea Rom 2013 Guangzhou Liu Sui ( NBL ) 2013–2014 EA7 Emporio Armani Milan 2014–2015 Trabzonspor 2015 Panathinaikos Athens 2015– EA7 Emporio Armani MilanUnited StatesUnited States
00000United StatesUnited States
United StatesUnited States
00000PolandPoland
China People's RepublicPeople's Republic of China
00000PolandPoland
00000FranceFrance
ItalyItaly
00000China People's RepublicPeople's Republic of China
ItalyItaly
TurkeyTurkey
00000GreeceGreece
0000ItalyItaly
National team
000002013 NigeriaNigeria Nigeria

Gani Oladimeji Lawal Jr. (Born November 7, 1988 in College Park , Georgia ) is an American - Nigerian basketball player . After studying in his native country, Lawal had a short career in the highest-endowed professional league, the NBA , before continuing his career in Poland , the People's Republic of China , France , Italy , Turkey and, since 2015, in Greece . He had previously won the Italian championship in 2014 with record champions Olimpia Armani Milan. As a Nigerian international , Lawal took part in the 2013 African Cup of Nations.

Career

With his school team at Norcross High School in the town of the same name in Georgia, Lawal won the Georgia state championships twice and was named "Gatorade Player of the Year" by the state at the end of his school years in 2007. Then he was invited to the McDonald's All-American Game 2007, in which he lost with the selection of the East by two points. After he accepted a place at the Georgia Institute of Technology , he played for the college team Yellow Jackets in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) of the NCAA from 2007 . In 2010, the Yellow Jackets lost the final in the ACC championship tournament against the Blue Devils of Duke University , who were then able to win the title in the national NCAA finals tournament, in which the Yellow Jackets failed in the second round at the Buckeyes of Ohio State University . After Lawal had withdrawn his name from the list a year earlier just before the NBA Entry Draft , he signed up after three years in the NCAA as a junior for the 2010 NBA Draft , in which he was in 46th position of the Phoenix Suns was selected.

At the beginning of the 2010/11 NBA , the Suns sent Lawal to their Iowa Energy farm team in the NBA Development League (D-League) in mid-November 2010 . In one month Lawal had ten appearances for Energy in the D-League before he was brought back to their roster by the Suns in mid-December. He then had a two-minute short assignment for the Suns before tearing his cruciate ligament in early January 2011 . After the injury break he played during the lockout of the NBA at the beginning of the 2011/12 season for the Polish first division team Zastal from Zielona Góra in the Polska Liga Koszykówki . After the end of the lockout, Lawal initially returned to Phoenix, Arizona , before he was released from his contract by the Suns before the late start of the season in mid-December 2011. After he had not made it into the squad with the San Antonio Spurs , he was initially committed to the Chinese Basketball Association by the Xinjiang Flying Tigers from Urumqi . Even before the play-offs of this league, he was replaced here by his future national team colleague Ike Diogu . In March 2012, Lawal had before then three more missions for Zastal Zielona Gora in Poland a contract until the end of season when Chorale Basket from Roanne in the French LNB Pro A got. Here, however, he came only to four more inserts after Chorale failed in the first play-off round against the eventual title winner Élan Chalon .

For the 2012/13 season Lawal got a contract with Virtus Acea from the Italian capital Rome . After two years in which the Romans had missed the Italian play-offs, they reached the final round for the title in third place, in which they moved into the final series against series champion Montepaschi Siena . The team from Tuscany held the upper hand for the last time and celebrated their seventh title win in a row. With good individual statistics averaging just under 14 points and more than eight rebounds per game, Lawal rekindled the interest of NBA clubs and was in discussion at the New York Knicks , where his college teammate Iman Shumpert already played. But Lawal first signed a contract with Latvian champions VEF Riga , after he had been active in the National Basketball League of China for Liu Sui from Guangzhou in July 2013 . After participating in the African Cup of Nations 2013 , in which the Nigerian national basketball team failed to take part in the 2014 World Cup in seventh place , Lawal provoked the termination of the contract after he did not play for the club in the qualifying round for the highest-ranking European club competition ULEB Euroleague 2013/14 participated. Instead, he signed a contract with the Philadelphia 76ers , where he replaced his Nigerian compatriot Solomon Alabi . But similar to the German international Tim Ohlbrecht before the start of the season, Lawal was released from his contract by the 76ers in the same month.

In early November 2013 Lawal then returned to Italy, where he signed a contract with record champions Olimpia Armani from Milan . In the Euro League 2013/14 Milan reached relatively easily the quarter-final play-offs, where one home advantage against in the first game Maccabi Tel Aviv had and therefore favors for reaching the Final Four , was the front of a home crowd in Milan's Mediolanum Forum was held . But Maccabi won the series and could also triumph at the Final Four in Milan, where they won the title. In the Italian championship, Milan reached the final series, in which you could dethrone defending champion Siena after two wins in the last two games of the series over seven games. The following season Lawal moved to the Türkiye Basketbol Ligi for the first division returnee Trabzonspor.

Web links

Commons : Gani Lawal  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gatorade Player of the Year. Gatorade , accessed on July 30, 2014 (English, filter to “boys basketball”, “2006 - 2007” and “Georgia”).
  2. Player Alumni List 12-2013: Boy's Alumni. (PDF (280 KB)) McDonaldsAllAmerican.com, February 11, 2013, p. 6 , accessed on July 30, 2014 (English, alphabetically sorted list of all participants).
  3. Archiwum - Sezon 2011/2012 - Zawodnicy: Gani Lawal - Mecz po Meczu. Polska Liga Koszykówki , accessed July 30, 2014 (Polish, seasonal statistics).
  4. Gani Lawal - Roanne - Joueurs - Pro A. Ligue Nationale de Basket , accessed on July 30, 2014 (French, player profile).
  5. Jared Zwerling: Agent: Knicks 'interested' in Gani Lawal. ESPN , June 2, 2013, accessed July 30, 2014 .
  6. VEF Riga announced Gani Lawal. (No longer available online.) ULEB , August 9, 2013, archived from the original on August 8, 2014 ; accessed on July 30, 2014 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.eurocupbasketball.com
  7. ^ Gani Lawal leaves Riga. court-side.com, October 4, 2013, accessed on July 30, 2014 (English, message on the website of a player agency).
  8. ^ Sixers sign Gani Lawal, release Soloman Alabi. (No longer available online.) Comcast SportsNet, Oct. 5, 2013, archived from the original on Aug. 9, 2014 ; accessed on July 30, 2014 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.csnphilly.com