In front of several NBA general managers, executives and scouts at the USA Basketball Junior National Team minicamp in Colorado Springs in early October, the nation’s top ranked player in the sophomore class according to ESPN, Baba Oladotun, a sophomore at Maryland’s Blake High, displayed an arsenal and array of skills that drew raves from those in attendance. 

Oladotun possesses a unique skill set for a player so young, with a rare talent and drive that have some comparing him to another youth prodigy that emerged from the state of Maryland nearly 20 years ago, Kevin Durant. 

“Baba was about seven or eight years old when I first saw him play and even at that young age, he was the closest thing I ever saw to Kevin,” said Wayne Pratt, Durant’s father. “As he continued to grow I saw it more and more. He can get his shot off against anybody and he can really shoot the ball. He has an advanced understanding of the game, he’s humble, he loves basketball and has remarkable length at 6-foot-9 right now. And he’s still growing. He’s a great young man who has a chance to develop into something truly special.”

But Oladotun’s path towards becoming one of the most sought after recruits and tantalizing talents in all of high school basketball doesn’t begin with his birth in Maryland 15 years ago. 

That journey began a generation prior in Nigeria, in the city of Lagos to be exact, a booming metropolis with a population of 21 million people. That’s where his father Ibrahim was raised and showed promise as a lithe, sinewy amateur light heavyweight boxer. 

“Boxing was very big in Nigeria and I spent a lot of time at the local rec center working on my skills,” said Ibrahim. “I was skinny, but had good footwork and a nice jab.”

Ibrahim’s odyssey that eventually brought him to the United States was one of unexpected turns and serendipity, of hard work and dedication, of a relentless commitment to academics that eventually led to his gifted 6-foot-9 teenage son’s recent explosion onto the national basketball scene. 

As the recruiting mail piles up from some of the top college coaches and programs in the country that have already offered Baba scholarships, including Maryland, Georgetown, Kentucky, Arkansas, Michigan, Indiana, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona State, Rutgers, UCLA  and USC among countless others, it’s difficult to fathom that this was never the plan.

“With Baba, it was never about, ‘Let me create this prodigy, let me create this baller who might have a chance to be an exceptional NBA player one day,’” said Ibrahim. “I would just bring him to the basketball court with me with his older sisters when he was very little so we could spend some time together as a family. But once he made that first shot, all he wanted to talk about was, ‘Ball! Ball! Ball!’”

Ibrahim’s pugilistic dreams, despite being a promising and undefeated prospect, were abandoned after suffering a series of serious cuts around his eyes and orbital bones by the time he was 17. 

His athletic idol, though, was Nigerian native Hakeem Olajuwon, the marvelous center who attended the University of Houston during the Phi Slamma Jamma heydey back in the early ‘80s. 

Olajuwon went on to win back-to-back NBA championships with the Houston Rockets in the ‘90s and is widely considered among the greatest centers, players and international imports ever in NBA history.

“Hakeem is from Nigeria and was raised in a Muslim household like I was,” said Ibrahim. “We had similar upbringings and when I stopped boxing, that’s when my basketball dreams came alive. I would often run into one of his younger brothers at my local rec center and Hakeem, as an athlete and a person, was what I aspired to emulate.”

But there weren’t many basketball facilities nearby, so the 6-foot-8 teen, who grew up speaking French, Arabic and English, would try to teach himself the game on local playgrounds. 

Because of his size, speed and footwork, despite having a limited skill set, it wasn’t long before he was spotted by a local scout. 

After a few phone calls, he found himself on an airplane, armed with a full scholarship to attend and play ball at Wagner College, a small liberal arts Division I school in New York, on Staten Island, that competes in the Northeast Conference. 

But the cold weather didn’t agree with him. He also felt that the commitment to his development was lacking. So he packed his bags and headed to Pensacola Junior College in Florida where he could better learn the game. 

After a solid JUCO campaign, he played his final two college seasons at Virginia Tech, specializing in defense, rebounding and shot blocking. Among his teammates was future NBA guard Bimbo Coles. And he loved the small town atmosphere that Blacksburg provided. 

Despite being a seldom used reserve, he was a crowd favorite, with fans at Cassell Coliseum screaming his nickname “Toon!” whenever he entered games. He felt a sense of safety, welcoming and warmth from the overall campus community and excelled in the classroom as a Financial Management major. 

“Spending those years at Virginia Tech was one of the best experiences of my life,” Ibrahim said. 

He played two years professionally in England and Greece but retired after painful back issues, which required medication and injections that would enable him to run, ended his basketball dreams. 

Back in the United States, he enrolled in graduate school at Howard University and studied accounting. By the time he was in his late twenties, he was working at Ernst and Young and building his own residential and commercial real estate business. 

That’s when a cute 5-foot-3 woman named Dessire, who was studying Pre-Law at American University, caught his eye while attending church one Sunday. 

He was immediately smitten. And the feeling was mutual. 

“Ibrahim and I met when I was 22 years old and finishing up my undergraduate degree,” said Dessire. “I was drawn to him. He was driven, very smart, very competent and he had a plan for where he wanted to go and what he wanted to accomplish in life.”

After dating for a few years, the couple got married and had three daughters before Baba and his younger brother, Wale, came along. 

Both parents stressed the necessity of academic achievement with all of their kids, but Desirre wasn’t initially sure about Ibrahim’s insistence that they participate in athletics.

“I was a military child that moved around a lot and didn’t play any sports when I was young,” said Dessire. “My dad played baseball and my mom ran track but they never pushed athletics on me. Going from that to being a mother raising a house full of athletes was an adjustment.”

Their three oldest daughters did competitive dance and swimming, along with playing basketball and volleyball. 

“Ibrahim would always say, ‘They have to be well-rounded.’ He said they needed activities outside of academics and told me to trust him. All of our children started out in sports early and it made a huge difference in their overall development as people.” 

“One of the main things I saw, aside from being committed to living a healthy lifestyle and how it helped their social skills, was how integral it was in building their confidence,” she continued. “That was huge. I didn’t know sports could do that. I’m very grateful for that. They had very busy schedules from day one but after a while you get used to the routine.”

Ibrahim was never the former athlete living vicariously through his children. With his success as a businessman, he and his wife had established their kids’ college funds before they were even born. So getting that athletic scholarship to attend an elite university was never an area of focus.

“You have to prepare your kids for life, not just basketball or sports,” said Ibrahim, whose daughters all took advanced placement classes in high school, earning college credits before they ever pursued their undergraduate studies. “As parents, our job was to make sure that their minds were right, that they had an advanced maturity and intellect, and that every day they were driven to become a better person.”

When Baba fell in love with basketball at an early age, the time spent in the gymnasium was more about family bonding than being a laboratory for creating a hoops phenom. 

“I used to go the gym with my sisters and they poured a lot into me, along with my parents,” said Baba. “I would be dribbling around and trying to get some shots up and I can still remember that first basket that I made, I can still hear the ball falling through the net. Being with my father and my sisters and my little brother made it so much fun. I just loved it and couldn’t get enough. It made me happy.”

“My older sisters, Shola, Yemi and Adeola, are amazing people,” Baba continued. “I can’t count how many times Shola beat me playing one-on-one. My sisters helped me as much with my basketball development as they did with my homework.”

When Ibrahim saw how committed Baba was to improving at hoops, he became more proactive with teaching him the game. He showed him ball handling drills and techniques, they trained in the basement doing calisthenics, there were one-on-one and two-on-two sessions with his sisters. 

“We did a lot of work on dribbling, footwork and shooting form, and we also did a lot of swimming, tennis and soccer,” said Ibrahim. “He’d work for hours on shooting from his preferred spots, running around cones to catch-and-shoot and I’d compensate him with his favorite candy, Skittles and M&M’s.”

“I’d run him through the drills that I saw Dell Curry do, Steph Curry’s dad, when he’d come back to Virginia Tech to work out,” he continued. “And he loved every minute of it. We had fun together, doing that stuff as a family.”

With his responsibilities as a father to four other children and the demands placed upon him by the various businesses he owns and operates, Ibrahim began enlisting some confidants that he came to trust over the years in the Washington DC and Maryland hoops community. They’d help train Baba and shuttle him around to his various commitments when he, his wife and daughters were unavailable.

“There is a village that works with him and they’ve all been very helpful,” said Ibrahim.

Among them is Pratt, the General Manager and Director of the Team Durant AAU program.

“I’ve tried to be a confidant because I already knew the pitfalls and the type of people to avoid based on my own experiences from when Kevin [Durant] was Baba’s age,” said Pratt. “When we were going through it we made some mistakes and had to learn on our own. I try to share the knowledge that I gained over the years to help parents and kids like Baba from going down the rabbit hole of the high school and AAU basketball scene.”

“And Ibrahim was really smart because as I started being around them more when Baba came to play for us starting in the sixth grade, the focus was never on how much Baba could score and how many games and tournaments he could win, the only thing he cared about was his son’s development.”

Another in that village is Musa Kamara, Team Durant’s 16U coach who began working with Baba when he was in the seventh grade and playing up against older competition.

“The first thing I noticed right away about Baba was his basketball instincts,” said Kamara. “Because he was the tallest player on the court, most coaches would be tempted to simply put him under the basket. He could handle the ball, had an advanced IQ and he was really good at reading the defense and passing the ball to his teammates. He was a step ahead of everyone else because of his mental development and intelligence, which his father had long stressed. You could tell early on that he had pro instincts because of the decisions he’d make.”

Those with a discerning eye can see it right away. Baba doesn’t hunt for shots in an attempt to stuff the stat sheet with points. An experienced observer who truly knows the game will simply say, “He plays the right way.”

“There’s no wasted dribbles, no wasted steps,” said Kamara. “His shooting range is obvious, but the beauty of his game is in the details. He’s a student of the game and he’s got the right answers to all of the difficult questions. He’s very unselfish and quiet and he’s morally grounded with a high character.”

That became evident when Kamara started working with Baba. After games or workouts, when other kids would scatter, Baba would say, “Hey coach, you need some help?” while already carrying bags filled with basketballs, uniforms and other equipment toward the team van.

“By the time he hit the seventh and eighth grade, he became this sensation,” said Ibrahim. “He loves working out, practicing and playing the game so much that sometimes I have to protect him from himself. If I didn’t tell him to get some rest he’d just keep going. And even then, when we weren’t in the gym, he’d be at home, laying on his back with a ball in his hands working on his hand placement, release, shooting form and follow through.”

As an eighth grader, Baba was invited to play in the prestigious Kevin Durant Nike Skills Academy, a coveted badge of honor for some of the top high school players in the country. 

During one lunch break, while most of the other players grabbed some food, Baba stayed behind to get some shots up on an empty court inside the facility at Bowie State University. 

On the other end of the court, he heard someone else shooting around. As he glanced over his shoulder, he noticed that it was Durant. 

The future Hall of Famer walked over and began to rebound for Baba. Within a few minutes, they began working out together.

“That happened so organically and I’m beyond thankful that God blessed me with that humbling experience,” said Baba. “That 45-minute workout, alone with KD, elevated my mid-post game with the things that he was showing and sharing with me. He broke it down to a science in terms of pump fakes and creating space to get my shots off. And I realized that every shot he takes in games is all a byproduct of the hundreds of reps that he takes when he’s practicing.”

“The truly great ones really love the game,” said Pratt. “For them, ball is life. I watched them work out and you could see Baba picking up those subtle nuances about the simple parts of the game, small things like proper foot placement and balance, that Kevin was teaching him right away. That’s when I really knew where Baba was heading because Kevin doesn’t waste his time with just anybody when he’s working out. Kevin don’t give that to nobody but he gave it to Baba. And the young man was just super respectful. He’s not a man of many words, it was all ‘Yessir, No Sir,’ and you could tell that he was dialed in, soaking up that wisdom and knowledge.”

Baba is also being currently tutored by another former Maryland prep legend, Walt Williams aka “The Wizard”, the 6-foot-8 sharp shooting swingman who starred at the University of Maryland prior to his 11-year NBA career.

Williams had been hearing about Baba for some time and decided to pop into a game during his freshman season last year to get an up close look. Intrigued after that first glance, he took in another game, and another.

“I saw this long, 6-foot-7 kid at the time who looked really young but he had a skill set that didn’t match his age,” said Williams. “I saw the tools, saw what he was capable of blossoming into. Because of my length and ability to handle, pass and shoot the ball as a player that could play in the post and on the perimeter, there were some similarities in our game. He can set up the offense, execute at a controlled pace, he has point guard handles, can pass, put the ball in the hole and get absolutely busy while taking a game over if that’s what it calls for.”

When they’re working out, Williams is teaching Baba how to handle physical contact from stronger players as his body continues to develop.

“As he continues to move up, bigger players are going to try to knock him around to get him off balance,” said Williams. “We’re working to combat that by being more aggressive, by getting those guys on his hip and initiating that contact. We’re not just in the gym doing drills, I’m guarding and physically fouling him like crazy so he can be comfortable and deal with stronger people that want to invade his space.”

“We’re also working on his post moves around the basket because when a 6-foot-4 guy is guarding him, like when I had a smaller player on me, I was taking him into the paint to punish him,” Williams continued. “We’re doing a lot of that in drill work, one-on-one and five-on-five full court situations. The funny thing is that I was taller than him when we started working out last year and now he’s taller than me. He’s grown two inches over the last year and he’s still growing!”

The development work is not merely limited to the gym, either. 

Baba and Ibrahim are currently working through the lessons in the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Each reading session is followed by a detailed discussion of how to incorporate those tenets into both basketball and life.

“Right now, we’re talking about being proactive and not reactive,” said Baba. “It’s about being a step ahead. From a basketball perspective it’s about never underestimating an opponent, studying their tendencies, seeing what they like to do to get into their initial moves, what their counter moves are and how I can best shut that down.”

Next on the reading list is Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist, the classic novel with the overall message of encouraging the reader to continue on their life’s journey without allowing any obstacles to impede their progress toward their goals and dreams.

“Baba has been very bright from a very young age with a rare attentiveness,” said Dessire. “People see this tall child who’s really good at basketball, but that’s only a part of who he is. He has a very thoughtful, creative side and he’s intellectually curious. I’m not surprised at his success because I see that work that he puts in and his own personal commitment. I’m very proud of him as a mom and the young man that he’s become, that despite his stature and the accolades that are coming, that he’s a kind person who thinks about others.”

The Oladotun family has already proven that they’re willing for Baba to take the road less traveled on his hoops journey. 

He initially enrolled at the regional and national powerhouse DeMatha Catholic for the start of his freshman year in high school. But after the first semester, they ultimately decided that enrolling at Blake, their neighborhood school where their daughters previously attended and starred in volleyball, where they already had established close relationships with the coaches, faculty and other parents, was a better fit for them.

“DeMatha has a great history and we loved what the school offered,” said Ibrahim. “But with the routine we had already established, with his workout regimen before and after school, getting him to his different training sessions and everyone else’s schedule in the household it just worked out better for us to have him closer to home at Blake.”

“DeMatha is a great institution and was a wonderful opportunity, but for us, we knew that he would still be competing against the best players in the country playing travel ball on the AAU circuit,” he continued. “Long term, it worked out better for us the way it’s set up now.”

“Ibrahim and his wife have done a great job of raising their children, keeping them humble and focused,” said Pratt. “Every decision they make, they make as a family and everything is meticulously planned out. They know what works best for them.”

As Baba’s star continues to rise in the prep basketball world and a larger spotlight begins to shine on him, some are guessing that this will be his last year playing for Blake, his local neighborhood high school team. They reason that the most prominent prep programs in the country with higher profiles that play national schedules will offer a bigger stage and a better opportunity.

“We’re just going to take it year by year but we’re very pleased with his high school experience thus far,” said Ibrahim. “Schools like Oak Hill, Prolific Prep, IMG, Montverde and others have reached out and it’s great that they’re interested. For me, I want the opportunity to raise my son. We’re focused on the moment right now where it’s about the three G’s – God, Grades and Game. But we’ll keep our options open.”

“We’ll evaluate the situation every year,” he continued. “The Prep route might be great for some kids, but we like where we’re at right now. If you’re good, you’re good. Sometimes organically is the best way to go. We feel blessed to be in the situation that we’re in. We’ll see how things stand at the end of his sophomore year and after this spring and summer. Right now, the work that we’re doing here is too good to walk away from.”

His son prefers to stay in the moment as well. 

“God blessed me with a mind power and an incredible support system,” said Baba. “The only thing I’m operating under right now is the philosophy of M.O.B. – Making Others Better. I’m watching a lot of film of guys with size who have embraced that philosophy – Magic Johnson, Jason Kidd, LeBron James and of course Kevin Durant – players that have unselfish mindsets.”

“His game is so mature but he’s a happy-go-lucky kid with a great attitude and despite his calm exterior, he’s very competitive on the inside,” said Williams. “His parents are grounded, they made sure he’s a good person and that’s why I’m most excited about working with him. He has a great mentality towards learning and he goes hard in the gym. He’s not content and doesn’t feed into people telling him how good he is. Even if his skill set doesn’t grow from here, which it absolutely will,  and he simply gets stronger, he’s still going to be an incredible talent.”

“I love being in the gym every day, reading during my quiet time, hitting the weight room, practicing with my teammates and then getting back in the gym at night after some rest,” he continued. “I love working out by myself and with my 13-year old brother, Wale. That’s my guy, my rock. He’s in the seventh grade right now and he’s going to be really good as well.”

“Right now, my focus is on getting stronger, continuing to build my IQ, improving my athleticism, rebounding and defense, working on my shot mechanics and making other people better. Basketball brings me a lot of joy, it helps me express my feelings and I’m excited about where it could possibly take me in the future.”