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By EDD K. USMAN | Twitter: @edd1819 | Instagram: @bluestar0910 | Facebook: SDN — SciTech and Digital News

MANILA (SDN)  — If you count Boston Celtics’ Jalen Brown as Muslim, then there currently are six players of the Islam religion, therefore, are Muslims, playing in the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Note that there were Muslim professional basketball players in the league who made names for themselves and were globally popular: Los Angeles Lakers’ multi-titled Kareem Abdul-Jabar, an American, and Hakeem Olajowun, a Nigerian American, of the Houston Rockets. He won one NBA champion’s ring.

It only goes show the NBA is culturally diverse, with players of different cultural, ethnic, and religious persuasions. Many league players come from many countries as well.

But Brown has not openly admitted what his religion is, whether a follower of Christianity, or a believer of Islam.

Be that as it may, BuzzNigeria.com, in a report on January 26, 2022, bylined by Samuel Daniel, says that “Brown is widely considered a Muslim as he observes Ramadan fasting.”

On the part of the professional player, he has declined to publicly declare the faith he practices, insisting that “he is more spiritual than religious”, the report adds.

Brown is a shooting guard with the Celtics and has been in the NBA starting in 2016. While he was not willing to reveal whether he is a Christian or a Muslim, “facts about available about his spiritual life, it is not wrong to proclaim that Jaylen Brown is a Muslim and not a Christian”.

Apparently, two of the reasons BuzzNigeria was saying so is that he was seen many in mosques,  nd he does eat pork, which is prohibited to believers of Islam.

So, without including Brown in the count, officially there are five Muslims who are playing in the NBA, according to sportskeeda in a report on November 8, 2022, authored by Asmir Pekmic.

Who are these players who declared the Shahaddah (the Profession of Faith), the first of the five pillars of Islam?

They are Kyrie Irving of the Dallas Mavericks, Germany’s Dennis Schroder who is in his second stint with the Los Angeles Lakers, Enes Kanter Freedom, who last played for the Portland Trailblazers (he has no team, so far, this season, and waiting for a new contract, if ever), Jusuf Nurkic of the Portland Trailblazers, and Dion Waiters, also without new contract after playing for the Los Angeles Lakers where he got his NBA champion’s ring in the championship in the Bubble in 2020.

Yes, you read that correctly, Schroder, the fleet-footed and wily German Laker point guard, is a Muslim.

Of course, Irving does not hide that he had converted to Islam. He did it April 2021, on the second week of Islam’s holy month, Ramadan, when Muslims do the fast — abstaining from food, drinks, and smoking, and sex in the day time — from sunrise to sunset. Ahd he is doing the fast.

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“All praise is due to God, Allah, for this. … For me, in terms of my faith and what I believe in, being part of the Muslim community, being committed to Islam and also just being committed to all races and cultures, religions, just having an understanding and respect. I just want to put that as a foundation,” declares Irving in one of his post-game press conference on April 23, 2021, when he was with the Brooklyn Nets, as quoted in Khaled A. Beydoun’s Commentary in the Anscape.

Of course, Irving is most remembered for his immortal dagger Clutch 3-pointer in the Golden State Warriors-Cleveland Cavaliers do-or-die seventh game of the NBA Finals on June 19, 2016. Led by superstar Lebron James, the Cavs came back from 1-3 down to defeat the Warriors, giving the Cavs its first-ever NBA crown, and Cleveland’s as well.

Sportskeeda says Schroder’s parents are German (father) and his mother from Gambia, a West African country, and mainland Africa’s smallest country.

The Lakers signed Schroder for the second time following his dominating play in the FIBA EuroBasket 2022.

Sportskeeda says Waiters is a Muslim. Currently, he still has not be signed to play again in the NBA after last playing with the Lakers where he won a championship ring during the Bubble 2020 world championships.

A premier center in the NBA, Nurkic, whos stands at 6’11”, is a native of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is known in the league as the “Bosnian Beast”.

Kanter Freedom, a harsh critic of Los Angeles Lakers’ superstar, Lebron James, and a politically-charged person, is from Turkiye. He is known to be a controversial professional NBA player, which some may say could be a deterrent to his getting a new contract.

He is barred from returning to his homeland, apparently because of strong criticisms he made in the past against the leader of Turkiye — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

We can only wish that Waiters and Kanter-Freedom get another chance to play in the NBA in the game they so love to play. (/)