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Hi everyone, welcome to the deal. I'm Jason Kelly alongside my partner Alex Rodriguez. All right, Ar, you are headed to the Olympics. I'm very excited for you, a little bit jealous. Tell me your mindset sort of going into this. I mean, you're an excellent athlete yourself. I mean this is literally the pinnacle of athletic achievement.
Yeah.
I'm very, very excited, Jason, because look, I've only been retired eight or nine years, and my mindset is I'm going to go back to being a ten year old and I'm a novice here. Yeah, and we're talking about swimming, track and field. Obviously basketball. We have a lot of our guys there from the timber Wolves. I'm going to go there just as a fan.
And that's it.
Yeah.
Historically, just speaking of basketball pacifically, some of the most iconic moments, especially for American athletes, have been around basketball, men's and women's. You know, you think about the Dream Team, you think about the ninety six women's team. It's a big deal for basketball because EDBA is a pretty big stage.
But the Olympics, there's something different to play for, especially because oftentimes you could be playing against a teammate or certainly playing against a rival in an entirely different context totally.
And what I'm really excited about is, at least thinking from being part of the Timberwles family, is I remember Jason nineteen ninety six was my first All Star Game. And there's one thing about being one of seven hundred and fifty players in the big leagues. The other one is being one of fifty that made it to the All Star Game and being in that platform where the whole baseball communities watching. And I remember when Kyle Ripken came to me for the very first time. Oh my god,
I felt like I met Messiah. And I was so excited and I was just so giddy. But what it did for my confidence it was like a four or five X. Leaving that place, I felt like, Wow, now I belong. I saw that a little bit with Anthony Edwards last year, coming up the Olympics, playing with great coaches,
great players, a great atmosphere, very competitive. I saw his growth and I'm really excited to see how well he plays there, how he contributes, and even more importantly, how he comes back and keeps developing his great young career.
Yeah, and as you said, I mean basketball is only a piece of what you're going to see. I mean, you know, I did this piece last year about Alison Felix and hearing her talk about, you know, running a race and then having to wait essentially four years to prove yourself again.
I mean, it's a crazy amount of pressure.
You played in this for where it's like, well, there's gonna be another at that, you know, probably in twenty minutes.
You know.
Can you imagine having to wait four years before you prove yourself again.
It's just crazy.
Yeah.
You know, I've talked to a lot of the stars that run track and I thought it kind of hit home when one of the stars that I spoke to said, look, I trained four years for ten seconds, and that really brought it to perspective. You can't trip false start, you hurt yourself and it happens all the time, and the amount of pressure is just like none other in any other sport than going to the Olympics every four years.
And then I think about what a game changer either being successful in the Olympics, you know, winning a gold medal obviously changes the entire trajectory of your life and certainly in the in the short and midterm, but also just like having a memorable performance can put you at a level you weren't before in terms of making deals, in terms of, you know, the rest of your career. If you are a gold medalist or a medalist, probably
you have a different path. There's a moment for athletic excellence, but there's also a moment too, I mean, not to be so crass about it, to grow your brand, you know, to sort of put your yourself out on this global stage. You know, hundreds of millions, billions of people watching you perform, not just in your home country but around the world. That could really change the trajectory of your business career, in your life.
Yeah, I mean, I can just think about as you're speaking, I'm thinking about being a kid and looking at Mary lu Gymnastics, and then you know, for the next four years she was in every cover. We were eating her cereal, we were drinking her milk. It was just incredible. Whether it's Carl Lewis, whether it's Jackie Joyner, Kersey. I can just think about all these icons that were really born out of these Olympic games, and not only that, Jason, but something for athletes to watch.
A lot of them are.
Known for what they've done on the course or on the track, or on the field or on the court. But also you've got to be careful off the court or off the field because there's been some controversial stuff that you have to be able to represent the United States.
And never forget that while your name is in the back, you're also representing those three letters across your chest, and is really important to be dissip and your best behavior and focus on the sport at hand, because there's a lot of eyeballs to your point.
Yeah, here's hoping that the Paris goes okay.
All right.
So when we talk about the world and we talk about basketball, a guy who you and I both know very well, I just spent a bunch of time with over the past year. He's the subject of a new episode of our power Player series here at Bloomberg Originals. The stuff that I do when I'm not talking to you, Messiah Jerry so Massa's name is synonymous with excellence and
really pioneering in the world of basketball. So he was named general manager of the Denver Nuggets back in twenty eleven, becoming the first African GM in pro sports, and then in twenty thirteen, Massai became the executive vice president and GM of the Toronto Raptors and now he's the president of that organization. His impact there has been profound. He revamped the team, brought in key players, and his most notable achievement, of course, came in twenty nineteen when the Raptors,
under his leadership, when their first ever NBA championship. But he's actually using basketball to extend his influence. He's also a dedicated philanthropist and through his Giants of Africa organization, he's empowering African youth through sports and education. He is well known to you, but I'm more interested in your view of Massai because you've seen him do his thing.
I have, and that's why I thought your piece was extraordinary. Congrats. It felt like you were there for a month. I'm like, Jason, when did you spend a month there? It was really well done. I'm sure you had great partners help you to produce that as well. But that's why it's so important to show and not just tell. And I think you and your producers did a fantastic job of showing us all the promise how bullish.
People are about it.
I recently had a conversation with Michael Milkin actually in Atlanta. We were doing a philanthropic event, and he told me that he is most bullish in the continent of Africa that is growing at a pace that reminds him of Asia and China a little bit ago and some of the limitations that they have in China, as he said, has really made Africa like the top growing in population.
And if you're an investor, whether it's basketball or baseball, sports or infrastructure or real estate, Africa is the right place to be because one of the most growing places in the world.
Yeah, I mean, one of the things that Massi is clearly working on is how do you use basketball for economic good on the continent of Africa. It's building courts, but it's also being very embedded in the community. And one of the things that Massi says in this piece, there are very few people who ultimately can be professional athletes. It's like a percent of a percent of a percent, and yet there are more people who can be in.
Jobs like Massi's job.
You know, he's the first to say he wanted to be a basketball player, he ended up being a scout, and then he ended up being an executive and now he's running a team.
And so this notion of, you know.
A career path built around sports. You and I see it all the time in these massive ecosystems are building up, and so it's interesting to see that ecosystem applied to a massive economic project, as you say, like Africa.
Yeah, I think what Massia is really kind of going to school on is he's seeing what the Lakers have done with La Live, you know, basically building an entire infrastructure around the Laker brand and the King's brand. In hockey, You're seeing what West Sedens and Mark Laswy have done with the Milwaukee Bucks and building that great stadium. You see what's going on in your hometown with the Atlanta Braves, I mean, is an absolute juggernaut what they've built around
that stadium, selling out every day. Obviously they brought a world title. But I also think that what he's doing that is really smart Jason, is he's bringing greatness to these young people out there. It gave me truendous hope. And Messiah is doing that exact same thing in Africa, by bringing the Obamas, by bringing some of his players, some retired players. That's even as important as building. As he said on that piece, the goal he's got twenty
nine courts. The goal is to build one hundred. My prediction is who build a thousand in the next decade.
Yeah.
Absolutely, And I think that this notion of using sports for economic development but also for diplomacy.
You know, this is a guy you alluded to it.
He's tight with Obama, and Obama been together on the continent unveiling courts. He is friendly with Prime Minister Trudeau in Canada. He's obviously tight with Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, has done a lot there, and his relationships across the continent and candidly at the United Nations and elsewhere are unparalleled.
So Power Players, Messiah Jerry, check.
It out and I'm glad you enjoyed it, Alex, Welcome back to the deal. Well, as I was just telling Alex, I was really excited to do this episode of Power Players about Messiu Jerry. This is a legendary figure in the the NBA, and he's legendary not just for what he's done with the Raptors. He won a championship in twenty nineteen, the only international franchise in the NBA. But along the way over the past twenty years, Massai has
set up this organization called Giants of Africa. I wanted to know what it was all about, so I actually went to Kagali, Rwanda, and in part because he was putting on a twentieth anniversary festival, he brought together players from all across the continent. There was a massive concert, there was a big community service element, and we went to all of it. So here's my conversation with Messiah Jerry. You're gonna hear some traffic and people passing back and
forth in the background. I started off by asking him how it all came to be.
We started this thing, you know, doing basketball camps, and that was it. We did basketball camp. We tried to come and affect kids in Nigeria. This thought for me came from being a director in the Basketball Without Borders program and that program brought one hundred kids from all over Africa to Johannesburg for basketball fundamentals camps and then community work. And I started to think, okay for doing this whole big thing, let me take it to my country,
which was Nigeria. It really started Giants of Africa then, and my eyes began to open a little bit. You know, you do basketball camps and clinics, but there's so much around it, and you come and you start to teach the kids life skills, you know, beyond time, all the things respect women and respect women and all the things that we want to really like embrace and teach this youth. But how are you teaching this youth? These boys, You're telling them to go do something when there's no girls.
So we started now incorporating girls into the camp, and you start preaching equality. Same shoes, same gear, same everything to play on the court. You see it here, it's the same. And that became big for us. Then we started to go into communities. Communities were not so privileged, whether it's slumps, whether it's war torn areas, a lot of places where the youth are playing or trying to
play the game, but they're not encouraged as much. I had some issues, a little bit of issues with facilities in Nigeria at the time, and one year, I think two three years later, I got a little bit agitated, you know, and I said I'm going to go do it in another country. So I chose my mom's country, Kenya and went to do camps in Kenya. It just became so fulfilling to go into these countries and to
be welcomed, you know, like through sports. And once I went into my mom's country Kenya, we found out that, you know, it's not difficult actually to like go into these countries because you are coming in the name of sports. And so we started going into different countries and that's how like Giants of Africa started to grow and become bigger.
So this notion of going country to country was not the initial idea, but then it gains momentum.
It feels like it gained like incredible momentum, and you know, social media is now starting to really become popular and people see that Yura in Kenya, you're in Nigeria, all of a sudden, everybody wants you to come to their country.
Then it starts to get bigger. Now we're going to five, six, seven countries, while going into all these slumps, while going into all these refugee camps, we're going into a lot of war to one areas and really like encouraging the youth which are so fulfilling for us, and that's how it started to grow.
It's interesting too to think about today you're the president of the team. You have a lot of influence across the NBA and across global basketball, including through Giants of Africa. But then your scout, you know, it's like you're an executive, but you're not sort of a big wig in the NBA. What gave you the confidence that, like, you could do this, that you could affect this change.
Well, maybe the best thing I ever discovered, like that helped me in my career was the confidence in the continent and the confidence in the talent in the continent. And if we grew the game, you know, the spotlight will start to come to this continent, but we have to grow it. There are no courts, there are no facilities, coaching is it's okay, it needs help. And I combined that so that was almost my day job, and the
nighttime was studying the NBA and learning the NBA. So the business side of the NBA, salary cap of the NBA side of the NBA, how it works, you know, in the league, and then you pour your passion into the game. Yeah, and when it all combines, I think you find more where you see that. Yeah, growing slowly, but the ultimate is what you say is the eye for the talent is that thing that keeps you in every gym for hours watching trying to figure out these
guys good enough to play in the MBA. And a lot of my focus was that when we first started, how do you find talent for the NBA, because that's my number one job. This is the one that has to pay for the camp.
Talk to me about that, I because I mean clearly that's the talent and talent assessment, talent discovery, that's your through line. Talk to me about discovering that in yourself. You started as a player, go to Europe. You realize I'm using your own words that like, you're not going to make it as a as a player in the NBA, but you've got something.
It takes networking with people, It takes one to learn more. You have to be a listener, you have to watch. You almost have to give yourself up, and I gave myself up. But the passion, if you show more passion than ambition, you'll go places, especially if you because you try to be good at it and God study a lot. I tell you that a lot, you know, instead of always looking at that position I want to be vice president or I want to be director, or I want
to be this. How do you push yourself to be that? Where does that come from?
Is that just something that's in you?
Is something you learn from your parents?
Like?
Where does that come from?
I think my parents, I honestly think my parents. My dad was that way, is so passionate about what he did, so good to people, honest to people. And then my mom on her side, she was the same way, but she was a little bit more fierce, And I think that I kind of like figured out a way to balance both of them, because you need to be fierce, you need to command, you need to be confident, and you need to be bold.
One of the things that falls under this sort of advantage that you clearly have that you bring to the table, this talent assessment, talent identification. It's especially interesting to think about the NBA because it's such a player driven league and so you have these big personalities, you have these sort of personnel decisions that literally fall to you and have for a long time.
What do you make of that?
Especially in the NBA as it has become so player driven and us seeing a lot of evidence of that in your career.
I think it's a player's league, you know, like I truly respect that. It is about the players. They make the league. They play and so talented, they have unbelievable personalities, unbelievable style. They all come from different backgrounds and that's so unique. You know. We can never be in that position, and I never think about it like that, yea. So I really respect that about the NBA because we have
an advantage, a huge, huge advantage. Think about the screens and think about the big screens that you have, and when you are watching sports, the NBA has the biggest, biggest advantage. Sometimes you have this big TV and you're watching Lebron James and now with technology, you almost feel like you're playing with him. You can't do that in any other sport. In hockey they have helmets. In football, they have helmets, so sometimes you don't even know who the player is. It's not a nock to them or
you know, but that's just reality. And then in the other ones in baseball and soccer, they are so far out in the field, yeah that you know, sometimes it's not as interactive, you know, like as basketball can be. So it's about the players. For me, I really embraced at one hundred percent. There's no day any day I've ever thought, you know, Okay, let's do it this way, you know, like no, Yeah, the players are the focus of the NBA.
So if you think about the place that maybe furthest away physically and almost figuratively from Kagali, Rwanda, it's Toronto, Ontario, Canada, And so I went there because that's massis natural habitat. These days, he's the president of the Raptors, and what he's doing there in the only international franchise in the NBA is creating a team that in some ways models what he's trying to create through all his work in Giants of Africa.
When I came here the first time to work for Brian Colangelo as the RTOR of Global Scouting, and I've started going to games, you see the diverse atmosphere, not just at the games, but in the city. And then I looked at this platform and you see how unique it is that it's the only team that's outside the NBA. You can see the rest of the world, including the USA, you know, like from maybe a little bit above and depends on what lens you use, and you can use
any marketing, branding partnerships, anything you look at. It's a gold mine, yeah, because we're almost competing with twenty nine teams from the outside, yes, and twenty nine teams are competing for the same thing, you know, like, and we just have this huge platform where we can look at Asia, we can look at Europe, we can look at the Americas, we can look at Africa, and we can really really like create a special platform here. I don't think it has been figured out by NBA players yet, but it
will be. It will be. There's something special about here. I always wonder from the championship year in twenty nineteen, how many young kids, including my son who's eight years old, now started to play basketball because of that championship and because of what it brought this whole country. A lot of programs have emerged, blowing up, and that matters a lot in sports.
You mentioned several different players, you know who've been so meaningful to this organization.
You have deep, long standing relationships with a lot of them.
One of the things that's happened in the intervening times since we've seen each other is that you ended up trading at a player who was so you know, dear to this organization, dear to you in Pascal Siakam, tell me about that, not necessarily from a business perspective, but from a MESSI perspective. I mean, you were emotional publicly about it. What was what was.
That like for you?
Not just Pascal, but all these players, you know, like you almost serve as a mentor to them if you have been honest you try to be in this business is the way I've always dealt with them, straightforward, honest. And then I'll go back to the global perspective. Now.
I think at the press conference, somebody asked me, you know, like what at the moment you remember, you know, like with Pascal and I think of, you know, the championship and US putting, or the Nigerian flag he wore, the Cameroon and young flag and Searge I had a flag
of the Congo and I think of what it's meant. Yeah, two African youth, you know, to see this happen in real life and really really really happened to people that grew up on the continent, our dreams where the NBA we fulfilled it and even reached the highest level like together. That is incredibly meaningful, you know, like for me because some way, somehow I know myself and Pascal and og and Sergey Baka. We want the youth on the continent
to come along, Yeah, to come along. And that's where I talk about winning on the court and winning off the court and how you bring people along. It's not easy and I understand business and trust me how I can. There's a ruthless yeah, but the human aspect of this, of everything in sports, I truly adore. Yeah, I respect, but it doesn't mean I'm not true ruthless businessman. Also, yeah, I see the youth. I see this basketball players on where they come from. It's meaningful.
As we're talking about the NBA, there's also this massive global ambition. Of course we saw it obviously on display, you know, with the work that you're doing in Africa. We see the BA l we see NBA Africa, we see what's happening in other countries.
What's next for that? From you?
You're a primary architect ofness. You manage the only international franchise you have, Giants of Africa. What needs to happen next to really grow the NBA globally and what's the reasoning behind it.
Well, if you're asking me for my dreams, yes, yeah, like teams outside the United States, I think in Europe. I think one day that's going to come, I hope, because the game has just grown incredibly well, I think over one hundred players from outside the United States in
the NBA now. The NBA creating that league, the Basketball Africa League, to me is a huge eye opener because when you look at talent all over the world, there is a chance even if it's like this little yeah, I can't really think in my head that I saw Joel in bid sitting down the basketball camp in Africa and how many years ago and that same kid will be the MVP of the league and will score seventy points a couple of days ago in a game. You saw him when he was a kid, Yes, yes, he
was in Basketball without Borders. But who are the top five players in the NBA now, you know, like in the in the MVP race, I think, you know, like it's indeed, it's your kids, it's Luca, it's Shay Gilchris Alexander. You know, they are international players, you know, And so look at the movement with Canada basketball and what they did in the Olympics, there's just an emergence and it can't be seen as a gimmick anymore. For me. We
have to develop it even more. And it's going to come from I think the bottom, which is whether it's Giants of Africa or Seeds or any of these programs, the junior NBA, and then from the top, which is the league's the business of basketball, because in other parts of the world we have to see sports as a business, not just competition.
Right, and that's seems to be such a critical piece of this, which is to ensure that it can be its own business. You know, bal has run in I mean they are showing it is a tough business to stand that up. You know, multi country, all the things that are happening. What needs to happen to ensure that business side really gets taken care of.
We have to educate more on the continent. Yeah, we really do. And all people need to do is see something happen. People are not going to understand the benefits of the Basketball Africa League till three, four, five years from now because we can't talk about it as a template. We can't talk about it as a presentation. We have to talk about it, you know, like as something that is happening, and then people can see we have to build infrastructure. Yeah, what President Kagami did has done in Rwanda.
Way he came here in twenty sixteen and watch the All Star Game and put his head down and said to me, you know, this is incredible. How do you get this kind of arena in Africa when you think about entertainment, when you think about music, sports, this whole ecosystem. We need infrastructure on the continent. And it's coming slowly because as soon as we get infrastructure on the continent,
it's over. Yeah. Where these artists Da Vido and Tia Savage and Bruna Boy and Whisked and I can keep naming them, and where they can go and play and tour on the continent. Sports is being played home and away in different parts. Now you're building a business. Now you're building an ecosystem that has to sustain. Yeah, and now companies, partnerships, businesses start putting money into this, the
eye is going to open. So the main step now for us is to build this infrastructure around the continent.
Right, and so you obviously deeply believe this.
Do you feel that the rest of the NBA is buying in, and not just from the league perspective, but other owners, other executives. Are they committed to this global growth? Do you think to the extent that they need to be?
I think they are, and I think we need to educate more too. You know, like a lot of people, when you think about Africa, I say it in the most humble way and I say it in the most respectful way. A lot of people think about Africa. I think Safari. Yeah, they think, oh, we have to donate ten dollars of people suffering. Yeah, but you don't think about the rising population, the youthful population, the demographic organization,
cities becoming bigger. There's so much going on, you know, like on the continent, real estate is growing, banking is growing, technology is growing. Yeah. I want sports to grow. Yeah. I want sports to be big up because we have talent. Yeah.
Is there a world in the near future where Joel embiid Pscal Siakam you can be Matumbo of the next generation play in Africa. They don't come to you, They don't come to the NBA.
I see that world in football and in basketball, and I'm hoping it happens before why I leave this world. Yeah, yeah, I can't tell you when it's going to happen, but it is going to happen. Yeah. It's the same thing as everything you think of is the same thing as technology, phones, arena, Everything that's here is going to go there, right, Yes, every single thing. The most difficult part of all of
this is talent. Yeah, so we can't do all of this, you know, like we can go and put a gym here, do everything we want to do, or where's the talent in Africa? It's walking around every single place you look. Yeah, you know, like that talent is not going anywhere. It's continuing to produce because of the demographic is continuing to grow. So every camp we go, there's brand new kids, there's brand new basketball players, there's brand new soccer players. It's amazing.
Go watch American football now and tell me in any game you go watch now, how many African names And it's not even played in Africa. Yeah, imagine if it was a physical sport like that. Yeah, Africa's talent is its people, you know, like and I think, yeah, the jew on the continent is is people smart, intelligent, athletic, physical, everything that you can think of on all different parts. But we have to take care of what you are
saying as the border's business. Yeah, eye opening, corruption, all those things that you know, like kind of set us back sometimes.
So having watched you in Kakali, I mean you're all in there.
You're, you know, the.
The impresario, the master reminder of everything that's going on.
It's easy to see your impact when you're there.
How do you from here ensure that that is keeping going and that you're really drawing connected sort of creating connective tissue between your day to day here and Giants of Africa.
It's only one word. Winning, Yes, win, Yeah. The last ten years. And opportunity the last ten years, the incredible opportunity that the NBA has given me out say twenty years, and the organizations I've worked with, whether it was Toronto, Denver here back in Toronto, the real vision of ownership. The Krunkies own Arsenal, so they see the world as global. They own a lot of sports teams and I worked with them here obviously see the world, you know, like globally.
And so when we started to introduce Giants of Africa and the work while doing on the continent and how we hope this can translate to winning here. It's the Pascal Siakams, you know, like it's the O g On Nonobi's, it's the Joel Embiids. You know, like when you see this actually go from basketball camp to NBA All NBA Player, All Star NBA player, seventy point NBA player, a Championship
NBA player, that's real. Yeah, that's real. But I have to win here and this is my job, you know, Like that gives me the opportunity, Yeah, to go grow the game, you know, globally in Africa, in Nigeria and all over the world. You know, I'm a representative of the NBA and I know that, you know, like and I believe that. But I have to give opportunity to others and it comes from winning. Whether it's the players, whether it's other people in my business, whether it's other coaches.
I feel we have to be in the forefront that creates more opportunity.
Because winning creates opportunity.
Is that the idea one hundred percent, one percent you win on the court, you win off the court, and as you do that, it brings people along.
The deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and me Jason Kelly. This episode was made by Victor Eveyes, Stacey Wong, Annamasarakus and Lizzie Phillip. Our theme music is made by Blake Maples. Our executive producers are Kelly Lafair, Ashley Honig, and Brendan Newnham. Sage Bauman is the head of Bloomberg Podcast. Additional support from Rachel Scarramazzino and Elena So Los Angeles, and part of this episode featured in an interview from the Power
Players series. Here are the folks who are involved in that. The showrunner was Tom Conners, the writer Kadiza Rivera, producer Vanessa Perdomo, editor Katerina Glanz, creative director Rubob Shakir, consulting producers Jennifer Zavazaja and Raymond Schillinger, editorial supervisor David E. Ravella, and executive producers Jason Kelly, Jordan Opplinger, Neville Jillette, Trey Shallowhorn and Kyle Kramer. I do you have a minute, subscribe rate and review our show. It really helps other
listeners find us. And remember, if you're a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad free. All you need to do is find the Bloomberg channel and connect your Bloomberg account with Apple Podcasts. I'm Jason Kelly. See you next week.