The journey to a secure legacy and immortality started for Mbah a Moute in 2010, when he set up a basketball camp in his native country. The camp was the reaction to a challenge from his parents to give something back to his community following his success in the NBA. The aim of the camp was, and remains, to pre-select five candidates for the Basketball Without Borders camp held yearly in South Africa. Two graduates of the Cameroon camp, Pascal Siakam and Joel Embiid, will link up with Mbah a Moute and Team Africa in Johannesburg next month.

The newly minted Houston Rockets forward has now spent nine years in the NBA since he was drafted out of UCLA with the 37th pick by the Milwaukee Bucks in 2008. Houston will be his sixth NBA stop following stints at Milwaukee, Sacramento, Minnesota, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. He is making his second appearance as a member of Team Africa, but his journey to the NBA Africa Game 2017 has been much smoother and less controversial than his approach to the 2015 event.

Luc was traded to the Sacramento Kings by the Milwaukee Bucks in the summer of 2013. His time at that franchise was short-lived, as he again moved, this time to the Minnesota Timberwolves by November of the same year. In August 2014 he joined Embiid in Philadelphia as part of a three-team trade. A year later Mbah a Moute signed with Sacramento again in July 2015; if his first stint at the franchise was short, the second was even shorter. His contract was voided by Sacramento two days after he was acquired, when he failed the team’s physical examination.

He had to undergo and pass another physical before he was allowed to participate in the NBA Africa Game.

This time, though, the Cameroonian is arriving on a high.

He has just completed the move to burgeoning Western Conference powerhouse, the Houston Rockets. Mbah a Moute, who was a starter at the Los Angeles Clippers last season alongside Chris Paul, will join the All-Star point guard in a team expected to challenge the Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference.

And he arrives at the Rockets as part of an elite wing defensive unit that will change the perception of the Rockets as a team lacking defensive intensity. His former coach at the Clippers, Doc Rivers, once named him as arguably the best defensive player in the League. That is high praise indeed.

That defensive intensity, plus his ability to guard multiple positions—either holding off ‘bigs’ in the paint or using his athletic ability to limit chances for smaller players on the perimeter— will be invaluable in ensuring Team Africa avenge the loss it suffered at the hands of Team World when they first met in 2015.

Mbah a Moute, who keeps spreading his knowledge of basketball and the NBA, was in Harare, Zimbabwe at the end of August to run a Top 50 Basketball Camp named after him. When he steps into the limelight for Team Africa in August —along with Embiid and Siakam—every one of the many students of the game who attended his many camps will have stars in the eyes, as they look to the future.

And so, one of the many objectives of the NBA Africa Game will be met.

By Akinbode Oguntuyi