Hamady Ndiaye announced his return to the Washington Wizards late last week after a month in the NBA Development League with a tweet.
“First time I get 3G signal in a month,” Ndiaye told his followers. “I was really far. Lol.”
Ndiaye hardly ever stops smiling or laughing, but he used his stint with the Dakota Wizards in Bismarck, N.D., as a chance to buckle down in a way he’d been unable to in D.C. since being drafted last June. He returned last week carrying a left knee injury but also an enlightened attitude toward “the grind.”
“Everybody’s trying to make it,” said Ndiaye, who averaged 4.0 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2.6 blocks with Dakota. It may not be much but was more than three points total in his four appearances with Washington. “It shows you two different worlds in one. I was glad to see that there’s something else, not just all the glamour and everything. When you go down there, you get focused.”
With little else to do in Bismarck, which recorded a low of 24-below zero on Jan. 19, Ndiaye made the three block journey from his hotel to the gym both before and after his D-League team practices. He was accompanied by trainer Joe Connelly, who the team sent with him to the Midwest.
“Even walked it a couple of times, but in that cold weather, you really don’t want to walk that much,” said Ndiaye, who took the advice of the Wizards’ staff before he left: pack heavy.
“I even got the biggest boots I have ever seen in my life. They [are] like a trophy to me,” Ndiaye said. “They’re size 17, but dude, if you look at them, it looks like they’re size 24. They’re huge.”
Safely out of the cold, Ndiaye worked on building confidence and refining his offensive game, enjoying the playing time and attention, even from his D-League opponents.
“They’re like, ‘You know what, you came down, we’re going to show that we’re better than you,’?” Ndiaye said. “Then for me, it was the other way around. ‘I’m going to show you that I deserve to be where I’m at.'”
After his mission in the frozen plains, Ndiaye has rejoined his fellow Wizards rookies, happy to be a French-speaking crutch for Kevin Seraphin and pretending to be a reporter interviewing Trevor Booker, as he did after Booker’s massive dunk in Friday’s game against Orlando.
“I know he didn’t like [the D-League] too much,” Booker said. “But I’m glad to have him back. That’s my homie. He’s always smiling. He’s a positive asset to the team.”
