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The Nigerian national men’s basketball team was not a juggernaut. So its head coach, Mike Brown, reached out of his comfort zone and halfway across the world, scavenging for hidden advantages.

A colleague with the Golden State Warriors, where Brown worked at the time, knew Paul Henare, who was head coach of New Zealand’s national team from 2015 to 2019. If Nigeria wasn’t a powerhouse, then New Zealand basketball was a home constructed with cardboard boxes. This was no breeding ground for NBA stars. Thus, New Zealand had to scrap. And in one particular way, the situation signaled a change in the sport.

Brown wanted to learn how an off

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