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It was like one of those scenes in a comedy flick. Cringe humor. You’ve probably seen it.
Shane Denully, an American from the Bronx, was instructing his new house guest, a skinny Nigerian teenager named Precious Achiuwa, on the particulars of his new abode.
He explained the layout. The shower situation. The hot and cold knobs. Denully was talking exceptionally slowly, not knowing whether Achiuwa was stuck behind a language barrier.
“And then in the midst of all that, I said, ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’” Denully told Sports+. “And he goes, ‘I speak English.’”
Perfect English?
“Perfect English.”
That might have been the first time — but definitely not the last — that Achiuwa surprised Denully.
After migrating from Nigeria in 2012 without much fanfare or outside expectations about his basketball career, Achiuwa settled in the boroughs and embarked on a journey that elevated him to the NBA and, more recently, his U.S. hometown New York Knicks as the new backup center.
Oz Cross, a longtime AAU coach now with the powerhouse NY Rens, was instrumental in bringing Achiuwa from Nigeria to The Bronx with a student visa.
But the recruitment wasn’t really about basketball for Cross. Not at first. It was mostly a favor for Achiuwa’s brother, God’sgift, a forward at St. John’s while Cross was an assistant coach at the program.
“God’sgift told me about his brother that was overseas, and I had a history of bringing over international kids,” Cross told Sports+. “His brother was young. I had no idea how good he was, honestly. God’sgift is just a really, really nice guy. So I was like, ‘We’ll bring him over, just because Gift is cool.’
“But we weren’t bringing him over as a prospect like we knew he was going to be good.”
As it turned out, Precious was good. But his confidence exceeded his skill.
“He thought he knew everything. But he didn’t know anything,” Cross said with a laugh. “I don’t know what he’d say now, but when he came over, I’d say we definitely had to challenge him and teach him. Because he thought he was here. And it was like, ‘Hold on, buddy, you got a lot to learn.’”
For the group that mined Achiuwa’s basketball talents when he arrived in America — Denully, Cross and coach Ken Miller — two things stood out.
The first was Achiuwa’s spirituality, which he developed as the son of two Pentecostal ministers from Port Harcourt, the fifth-largest city in Nigeria. Achiuwa committed to attending church twice a week — sometimes trekking from The Bronx to Queens — making it the non-negotiable first priority.
The second priority was basketball, which manifested itself in 5 a.m. training sessions before classes at Our Saviour Lutheran in the Bronx.
Miller, one of Cross’ AAU assistants, was leading those workouts at OSL, where he was also an assistant coach.
“He proved pretty fast that he was determined to come here and become something,” said Miller, now a coach at Earl Monroe’s New Renaissance School.
Achiuwa stayed at either his brother’s home in Queens or in The Bronx with Denully and Denully’s mother. Denully, also a longtime AAU assistant with Cross and currently a coach with the NY Rens and an NYPD officer, was impressed with Achiuwa’s drive.
“He really wanted to make it,” said Denully, who, alongside Miller and Cross, has guided other top New York-based prospects into the pros with what he called “The Formula.”
“That’s one thing I noticed when Precious first came here. He was really, really hungry. He wasn’t just happy being in America and the lifestyle. Some foreigners come here and they settle and they don’t work hard.
“I’ve seen a lot of kids like that when they come from overseas and different countries. They come here and the work kind of stops. … Not him.”
It helped that Achiuwa, now 6-feet-8, hit his growth spurt in high school.
“When he came, he told me he was a point guard. I’ll never forget,” Denully said. “But he grew, so he didn’t have to be a point guard.”
Cross’ realization about Achiuwa’s NBA potential occurred after losing the 15U AAU title game with New York City’s New Heights program.
Achiuwa was inconsolable.
“He had a pretty good game in the championship, but after the game he was crying so much. And I couldn’t get him to stop crying,” Cross said. “I had to get him outside and tell him it was going to be alright. And he was like, ‘No, it’s not going to be alright.’
“He just couldn’t get over losing. At that point, I’m like, this kid is going to do something special. He’s taking this hard. He played well. But he took it hard, and thought he could’ve done better. … He came back the next year and won the championship.”
The rest of Achiuwa’s journey, until about a week ago, took him farther away from New York. He transferred from OSL to high school powerhouses St. Benedict’s in New Jersey and Montverde in Florida.
He spent a year at Memphis under Penny Hardaway, then went 20th overall to the Miami Heat in the 2020 NBA Draft. Through it all, Achiuwa maintained his ties to New York and the relationships with the men who helped him leave.
“He’s like a little brother to me,” Denully said. “He’s family. He became the godfather to my son.”
Last week’s trade to the Knicks was greeted with a mixture of excitement and concern from his longtime New York friends. They’re obviously elated about him playing frequently at Madison Square Garden, where Achiuwa will see minutes as a backup to Isaiah Hartenstein and Julius Randle. But there are pitfalls to being this close to so many former acquaintances.
“Tickets,” Cross said. “I’ve got calls from everybody. The janitor. He went to two different schools in the area. Calls from teachers, random people who’ve had interactions with him through seven years out here, have all been calling like, ‘Hey, I need 10 tickets. I’m like, 10?’”
Each player is only allotted four free tickets per game.
“When he got traded, it felt like I got traded because everybody was texting my phone for tickets,” Denully said. “I was like, ‘Yeah, this is not going to work.’”
Plus, the fan base is unforgiving. There’s added pressure … especially for a midseason acquisition who’s supposed to fill an important hole in the rotation.
But Achiuwa, the New York side of him, should know that already.
“I was happy because he would be close to home. But I also know the Knick fanbase is brutal,” Denully said. “If success doesn’t happen right away, it can be rough.
“So it won’t be something he’s not familiar with. He was basically raised here.”
The NBA put out a list of its “15 most-viewed players” on social media — meaning X, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube — and, despite finishing in the top 8 last season by getting to the conference semis, not one Knick was listed.
That’s a bit of a drag considering the Knicks are a marquee franchise, but the Q score of this particular team has been surprisingly low.
Last season, for instance, neither Jalen Brunson nor Julius Randle cracked the top 35 in All-Star fan votes across the NBA.
They’re both All-Star candidates again in 2024, and I’m interested to see where they land, if anywhere, when the first returns of the ballots are released Thursday.
My guess is they won’t be high.
Why are these Knicks players struggling to earn widespread fanfare?
There are plenty of theories, and I’ll let you create your own because popularity isn’t an exact science.
Here were the NBA’s most-viewed players of 2023:
LeBron James (Lakers)
Steph Curry (Warriors)
Victor Wembanyama (Spurs)
Nikola Jokic (Nuggets)
Luka Doncic (Mavericks)
Jayson Tatum (Celtics)
Kevin Durant (Suns)
Jimmy Butler (Heat)
Giannis Antetokounmpo (Bucks)
Jamal Murray (Nuggets)
Anthony Davis (Lakers)
Kyrie Irving (Mavericks)
Austin Reaves (Lakers)
Joel Embiid (Sixers)
Ja Morant (Grizzlies)
Want to catch a game? You can find tickets for all upcoming Knicks games here.
I’ve been saying all along, even in last week’s Knicks newsletter, that the likeliest time for a big trade is in the summer of 2024.
My point still stands after they dealt for OG Anunoby, which was an important shakeup but not the All-Star blockbuster I was referencing.
Why in the summer? That’s typically when star players jar loose because of playoff disappointments or concerns about the salary cap heading into the next season.
Unless a player is actively causing a disruption (ahem, James Harden, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving), a star usually isn’t traded during the season.
Which brings us to the Timberwolves.
Speaking to a couple people before Minnesota played at the Garden on New Year’s Day reinforced the idea that the T-Wolves likely can’t keep this squad together.
They’re certainly playing well enough to warrant a run through the playoffs, but their cap situation is so dire — they’re projected to pay outrageously into the luxury tax next season — that the expectation is somebody will be unloaded in the summer.
Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore, who are assuming control of the franchise from Glen Taylor, are plenty wealthy in a vacuum, but not by NBA owner standards.
The most logical player to move is Karl-Anthony Towns, who is set to earn (shield your eyes) about $224 million over four years starting in 2024-25. He’s a very good player, but not worth that much.
Towns’ situation, as I’ve reported, is being monitored by the Knicks.
Leon Rose used to be his agent, and Towns remains a CAA client.