The life of a professional basketball player can be a nomadic one and perhaps no one understands that more than Dubai Basketball’s summer recruit Mamadi Diakite.
The Guinea native left home at 15 to study and play basketball in the United States and went on to win a national championship with the University of Virginia (UVA), scoring a famous buzzer-beater along the way that has gone down as one of the most pivotal moments in the school’s NCAA history.
His NBA journey started in 2020 by signing with the Milwaukee Bucks as an undrafted free agent.
Besides winning the NBA G League title with the Lakeland Magic – which he was assigned to because the Bucks’ affiliate G-League team did not play that Covid-affected season – Diakite also played 14 regular-season games and seven playoff games with Milwaukee in that 2020/21 campaign and walked away with a championship ring as Giannis Antetokounmpo led the Bucks to the NBA title.
That made Diakite the only player in history to win an NCAA title, a G-League title, and an NBA championship.
Diakite would then go through a series of trades that sent him to six more NBA teams in a span of four years before he decided to move to Europe, inking a deal with Spanish side Baskonia.
After spending the 2025/26 season with Baskonia – a team based in the Basque capital city of Vitoria-Gasteiz – the Guinean centre has now brought his big-man skills to Dubai Basketball, joining the ambitious project that has already enjoyed tremendous success in its short two-year existence.
“Dubai is unbelievable, man. It looks like it's not real,” Diakite told The National in an interview ahead of this weekend’s inaugural EuroLeague SuperCup.
The 29-year-old hasn’t been in the city that long but is already in awe of everything it has to offer. He joins a team that has made big moves during the summer on the back of a campaign that saw them clinch a historic ABA League title and finish 11th in their first year competing in the EuroLeague with a respectable 19-19 record.
Asked what attracted him the most to the Dubai Basketball project, Diakite says: “Them being kind of so remote from the EuroLeague map and being able to try to make the best team. When I say the best team, I'm not just talking about the players. I'm talking about the coaches, how they take care of you, how they treat you as a person, from top to bottom. It's unbelievable.
“They're hands-on in everything. Anything that you need so you can become your best self on the court is what they're trying to do.”
Having moved around for so long, Diakite is hoping Dubai can provide him with some stability, and the reassuring words he received from the team’s general manager and co-founder Dejan Kamenjasevic were just what he needed to hear.
“I know I'm a hard worker and obviously that's what they're looking for,” said Diakite, who came to the emirate with his wife and son.
“When I talked to Dejan, the GM, he told me, ‘You're here, I want you to relax, life is good' … That's the aspect of it, ‘You can trust us. We got your back. Just when it's time to focus, focus. When it's time to unplug, unplug. Be yourself. Be you’.
“So, yeah, I would hope that I'd be here as long as it allows me.”
Dubai’s busy summer spending saw them bring over a world-class coach in Xavi Pascual from Barcelona, as well as five other key signings alongside Diakite that include Tornike ‘Toko’ Shengelia from Barcelona and Thomas Walkup from reigning EuroLeague champions Olympiacos Piraeus.
The EuroLeague SuperCup at Etihad Arena this Friday and Saturday is a newly-launched competition that brings together four of Europe's leading basketball clubs in a final four format, featuring Olympiacos, EuroLeague runners-up Real Madrid, 2024/25 EuroLeague champions Fenerbahce Istanbul, and host-nation representatives Dubai Basketball.
Diakite, who is a serial winner and is coming off a Spanish Cup-winning campaign with Baskonia, is hoping he can keep up his silverware-clinching ways by starting with Dubai on a high note this weekend.
“It would be amazing to win that,” he said of the Super Cup.
“My career, yes, I'm aware that I've won a lot. But for me to keep going on that path, I need to not worry about what happened in the past. I need to see and enjoy and say, ‘Oh, okay, cool, I won. It's great’. But I need to focus on the present and see what I can do to contribute and to be the best self, my best self and win something again.
“All of these teams are trying to win. All these guys are focused on winning. They're serious. Only one gets to win. And the one that gets to win is, I believe, very disciplined. There's harmony or unity. Even if it's not off the court, at least it's on the court, there's unity. And there's a passion of winning and understanding of the game.
“And also the humility. You have to be very humble. When I say humble, it means, I know you're good so today, when I play against you, I'm going to play really hard because I respect you. That's why I guess Olympiacos won, and hopefully, we're part of that this year. But being selfish, not understanding each other, not doing your role, whatever, it might hurt you.”
Diakite is focused on making the most of this opportunity because he knows all too well how quickly things can change.
“You might not be in that kind of same position ever again. So, it might be your last shot. Some people are lucky, it might be your first shot. Maybe you have many more, but you don't know that,” he added.
“So, you better put your hands on anything that you have now and keep it in your pocket.”
Diakite has one year of European basketball experience under his belt and he can confidently say that his season with Baskonia playing in Spain’s ACB league, as well as the EuroLeague “was one of the hardest years I've played in my whole career”.
Leaving the NBA to ply his trade in Europe was a difficult decision and he says he had to be very disciplined throughout his transition from Arizona to Spain.
“It's tough for a pro to leave such an environment, the best league in the world, in the NBA, and come in a different environment and having to listen to everything that everybody's telling you, that have experience in that league,” he explained.
“Putting yourself, putting your ego down and being able to listen to what they're saying so you can get better is not easy. So that's kind of what I faced in every transition.
“In Spain, it was tough, but then Pablo (Galbiati, coach of Baskonia) and I have understood each other, were able to understand each other. And he told me a lot of things about Europe, honestly. He convinced me that Europe is a great environment for guys like me who want to make it, work really hard, and he admires that.
“ACB was one of the hardest years I've played in my whole career. I'm probably going to pick it over the NBA as far as how tough it is, because every game that you play is tough and you need every game. It's not like in NBA where you lose one or two games and you tell your teammates or the coaches come in and say, 'we've got the next one, it's fine, we're going to get them or whatever'. It's more like, 'okay, we need to win everything that we can win now' because later on, we don't know what's going to happen. We're going to end up in a good position. And that's the same mentality I brought here. And hopefully, I can prevail with that.”
Diakite believes he can bring more than that. He feels he will bring versatility on both defence and offence and is willing to be patient in order to better understand how the team intends to play.
He says Pascual is a very tactical coach and he’s paying close attention to everything he says, as well as players like Shengelia and Dwayne Bacon, who have both played under the Catalan coach and understand his style of play.
“I know it's a very new project, but it doesn't seem like it,” said Diakite of his impression of Dubai Basketball.
“They're extremely organised from top to bottom. The other thing is the mentality. There's a lot of guys that have been winners their whole life. So, there are all these great guys that want to bring their experience into such a beautiful project, in a beautiful city. That can help you in many ways other than basketball.
“And having that mentality of, ‘We don't know what's going to happen this year, but we want to be a part of something beautiful in history’. Hopefully, we'll win. You know, that's the ultimate goal.”
They can get a jump start on that goal this weekend at the Etihad Arena.
