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Autos / Re: Sharp Few Months Used Acura MDX 2009 @2.2m by Meewasin: 9:04pm On May 29, 2019 |
Very nice ride with good price - although the mileage is laughable. 1 Like |
Sports / Re: Giannis Sina Ougko Antetokounmpo - How Does This Sound Nigerian? by Meewasin: 4:00pm On May 28, 2019 |
rusher14:Yeah funny they changed the name to what the Greek can relate to. 1 Like 1 Share |
Sports / Re: Giannis Sina Ougko Antetokounmpo - How Does This Sound Nigerian? by Meewasin: 10:51pm On May 27, 2019 |
“I told Giannis, ‘You have become what you have become, because of where you come from,’ ” Velliniatis said. “Giannis doesn’t understand fear.” When he returns to Athens now, he is besieged by people who want him to pose for photos and sign autographs. Yet he still visits the cafe across the street from the basketball court in Sepolia, much to the delight of the proprietor, Giannis Tsiggas, 64. From the time Antetokounmpo was 9 years old, he and his brothers would pass the cafe en route to the playground from the apartments they rented in the area. “They always used to say ‘good morning,’ ” Tsiggas said. He gave the boys sandwiches and juice, knowing they were hungry, eliciting anger from some white residents who did not want Africans settling in the area. On the cafe walls, Tsiggas displays photos of himself standing next to Antetokounmpo — as a slender teenager, and as the chiseled man he is now. A gift that Antetokounmpo brought him on his most recent trip sits in a frame over the counter: his jersey from the 2018 N.B.A. All-Star Game. Success has not changed Antetokounmpo, Tsiggas said, but it has changed the conversation about the African community. “It’s wonderful for Greece,” he said. “We are all proud of Giannis. We all say he is our kid, even the people who didn’t like him back when they said, ‘He’s just a black boy.’ ” Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/sports/giannis-antetokounmpo-greece.html |
Sports / Re: Giannis Sina Ougko Antetokounmpo - How Does This Sound Nigerian? by Meewasin: 10:51pm On May 27, 2019 |
Was this legal? The coach shrugged. “Everything is legal and everything is illegal in Greece,” he said. “It depends on how you label it.” When his new recruit arrived at the gym, parents of other players, most of them white, gave him grief about Antetokounmpo. “He didn’t even know how to dribble or make a layup,” Velliniatis said. Christoforos Kelaidis, then the team captain, remembered being confused. “He was not that big,” he says. “He was like an ordinary man starting something new. I couldn’t see anything remarkable.” But there was something about Antetokounmpo that struck his teammates, well before his physique filled out, and long before he acquired the skills that would eventually draw comparisons to Magic Johnson and Kevin Garnett. “He was very competitive,” Kelaidis said. “He didn’t like to lose. He couldn’t do that much, but he had that spirit.” Velliniatis drilled his players extensively, preparing them to be able to play every position. He would put them in a circle on the court and have them dribble five and six balls at a time to nurture dexterity. He had them practice passing one-handed, zipping the ball down the court and running fast breaks to develop speed, vision and agility. Antetokounmpo often stayed at the gym practicing until near midnight, sleeping there on an exercise mat in the weight room for fear of heading home in the darkness. Fascists and neo-Nazis affiliated with the Golden Dawn political party roamed the neighborhood menacing immigrants. By the time he was 16, Antetokounmpo had become one of the top players in Greece, even as he remained in the second tier of the amateur leagues. Scouts flew in from the United States to watch his games. Milwaukee would select him in the first round of the 2013 draft, using the 15th pick. He was 19. In the summer of 2015, after his second N.B.A. season, he flew back to Athens. He and his old coach met for dinner. |
Sports / Re: Giannis Sina Ougko Antetokounmpo - How Does This Sound Nigerian? by Meewasin: 10:49pm On May 27, 2019 |
You hear this frequently among people of African descent in Greece, who are still getting used to the idea that their community — a group confined to the margins of Greek life — has yielded an international superstar. “We are proud of him,” Justina Chukwuma, an immigrant from Nigeria, said as she watched her Greek-born 10-year-old son, Great Chukwuma, practice layups at his after-school basketball program. “Everyone from Africa, they are looking up to him. They want to be like him, especially the boys. They are motivated by his achievement.” Nepotism once made it difficult for black players to penetrate the ranks of Greek basketball. “Black players in Greece have chances because of Giannis,” said 16-year-old Favor Ukpebor, a lanky shooting guard on an amateur team. Antetokounmpo’s chance came through Spiros Velliniatis, who is widely credited with discovering his raw potential. Velliniatis played high school basketball in Florida as an exchange student. After he assumed the head coaching duties for the junior squad of a team in the middling ranks of Greek amateur basketball in 2007, he began walking neighborhoods full of African immigrants looking for children who appeared likely to fill out and grow tall. But he was most interested in body language. “The most important thing is to have perception, street smarts,” Velliniatis said. “I look at people’s eyes. Are they active and engaged? This is my scouting report.” One day that spring, he walked into a playground in the Sepolia neighborhood and caught sight of a 13-year-old boy who checked all the boxes. Giannis Antetokounmpo and his two younger brothers were running around chasing each other. The coach was transfixed. “I could see that Giannis had real skills in changing direction,” Velliniatis recalled. He had huge hands and a frame that looked poised to grow. “It was like something stopped me from the sky. The moment I saw him, lightning struck me.” “I had a discussion with God in this moment,” Velliniatis continued. “You can call me crazy, but this is the way I felt. I said, ‘Father in Heaven, am I seeing correctly?’ And I said, ‘Why me?’ And the answer that I got was, ‘If not you, who?’ Velliniatis said he asked Giannis to get his mother, who was then cleaning houses. When she arrived, he made her an offer: He would find the parents jobs paying 800 euros per month if Giannis would come and play basketball for him. “I knew that Nigerians don’t care about basketball,” the coach said. “They care about soccer. You need to bribe them, the parents. Otherwise, they will not be interested.” |
Sports / Re: Giannis Sina Ougko Antetokounmpo - How Does This Sound Nigerian? by Meewasin: 10:48pm On May 27, 2019 |
Chris Iliopoulos Odoemelam, 24, used to play pickup games with Antetokounmpo when they were just a couple of 11-year-olds, both children of African immigrants. His old friend exhibited little basketball acumen, fumbling around a concrete court just off a busy thoroughfare and across the street from an auto shop. Today, the same court is painted with the image of Antetokounmpo in his current guise — a statuesque man in a green Milwaukee Bucks uniform holding a basketball skyward, presumably on his way to another emphatic dunk. Five thousand miles away on the shores of Lake Michigan, Antetokounmpo has built himself into a bona fide superstar on the team with best record in the N.B.A., and a leading contender for this year’s Most Valuable Player Award. At nearly 7 feet tall, he has the ball-handling skills of a point guard and the battering ram force of an old school center. He gets to the rim with the ease of a grown man playing Nerf ball against a 6-year-old. Odoemelam tries to square the skinny child he remembers with the indomitable force he watches on YouTube clips. He comes up incredulous. “He was just a guy you would see in the street, hungry and looking for food,” Odoemelam said of Antetokounmpo, who sold DVDs and sunglasses on the streets of Athens to support his family. “He didn’t have anything. He had one pair of shoes that he had to share with his brothers. And now he’s a millionaire. It’s crazy.” |
Sports / Re: Giannis Sina Ougko Antetokounmpo - How Does This Sound Nigerian? by Meewasin: 10:48pm On May 27, 2019 |
“He was given Greek citizenship in order to prevent him from traveling to New York as a Nigerian,” said Nikos Odubitan, the founder of Generation 2.0, an advocacy group that helps second-generation immigrants gain legal status in Greece. When Antetokounmpo was still an ordinary mortal, he was seen as just another migrant in Greece illegally. Now that he is a basketball star, “he has become the ambassador for Greece,” Odubitan said. “Of course, we are all proud of what happened. But this is not what it takes to be a Greek citizen. We have engineers, doctors, all kinds of professionals, and the Greek state does not recognize them. Why does it take being a basketball talent?” White people in Greece now embrace Antetokounmpo, claiming him as one of their own, and reveling in his nickname as a cue for flag-waving. “They put him on a pedestal,” said Jackie Abhulimen, 27, the Greek-born daughter of African-born parents. “But the same person cheering Giannis could swear at me on the road. There’s still a very big sense of invisibility, of not being recognized as existing.” “What Giannis represents is important for the younger kids growing up now,” Abhulimen continued. “But I do feel slightly disappointed in how certain histories and certain identities have been put aside. He hasn’t publicly identified as a black Greek.” Yet in November, after a Greek television sports commentator called Giannis’s older brother, Thanasis Antetokounmpo, who plays for one of Greece’s premier basketball teams, a “monkey,” Giannis spoke out about his heritage. “My brothers and I are Greek-Nigerian,” he wrote in Greek. “If anyone doesn’t like it, that’s their problem.” In Sepolia, the gritty Athens neighborhood in the shadow of the Acropolis where Antetokounmpo grew up, people who knew him as a child marvel at what he has become. |
Sports / Re: Giannis Sina Ougko Antetokounmpo - How Does This Sound Nigerian? by Meewasin: 10:47pm On May 27, 2019 |
ATHENS — He is known as the Greek Freak, a basketball player of such transcendent ability that he has become celebrated as the face of the country of his birth. Yet for most of his life growing up in Greece, Giannis Antetokounmpo was considered a foreigner. As the son of African immigrants, he was perpetually vulnerable to attacks by racist militants, and to threats of deportation to Nigeria, a country he had never visited. As Antetokounmpo now commands the stage in the N.B.A. playoffs as the best player on the Milwaukee Bucks, the top-seeded team in the Eastern Conference, his fellow African immigrants in Greece are watching with rapt attention. His story — the tale of a teenager who could barely dribble turning himself into one of the supreme basketball players on the planet — is the source of admiration and joy. Yet it is also cause for bitter reflection on the enduring discrimination suffered by his community. Many lament that Antetokounmpo’s experience has become fodder for a fairy tale about Greek life in which his struggles have been edited out. Until recently, even the children of African immigrants who were born here found it difficult to secure legal residency, let alone citizenship. Their stateless status denied them national health care, Civil Service jobs and access to sports leagues. Antetokounmpo only gained Greek citizenship six years ago — just as he was about to go to New York for the N.B.A. draft. |
Sports / Giannis Sina Ougko Antetokounmpo - How Does This Sound Nigerian? by Meewasin: 10:38pm On May 27, 2019 |
The NBA's Most Improved Player Award (MIP) is an annual National Basketball Association (NBA) award given to the player who has shown the most progress during the regular season. The winner is selected by a panel of sportswriters throughout the United States and Canada, each of whom casts a vote for first, second and third place selections. Each first-place vote is worth five points; each second-place vote is worth three points; and each third-place vote is worth one point. The player with the highest point total, regardless of the number of first-place votes, wins the award.[1] Since its inception, the award has been given to 31 different players. No player has ever won the award twice. The most recent recipient is Victor Oladipo. Boris Diaw and Kevin Love are the only award winners to win an NBA Championship. Rony Seikaly,[a] Gheorghe Mureșan, Boris Diaw, Hedo Türkoğlu, Goran Dragić, and Giannis Antetokounmpo are the only award winners not born in the United States; all but Seikaly were also trained completely outside the U.S. (Seikaly played college basketball at Syracuse). NB: The last 2 MIPs are of Nigerian decent. Why would you wanna change your beautiful Nigerian name to sound Greek when even great Hollywood actors are retaining their names? |
Travel / Re: Canadian Express Entry/federal Skilled Workers Program - Connect Here Part 7 by Meewasin: 11:22pm On Mar 05, 2019 |
BootyliciousHon:Please check what they need on their website and grab it with both hands. Congrats 1 Like |
Travel / Re: Canadian Express Entry/federal Skilled Workers Program - Connect Here Part 7 by Meewasin: 11:13pm On Mar 05, 2019 |
BootyliciousHon: Congratulations to you. Did you obtain any degree from Canada? I asked because I heard they go for people with Canadian education. |
Travel / Re: Canadian Express Entry/federal Skilled Workers Program - Connect Here Part 7 by Meewasin: 9:16pm On Feb 26, 2019 |
msmodi: https://smallpdf.com/compress-pdf 2 Likes |
Travel / Re: From Lagos To Toronto - Follow My Canadian Hustle by Meewasin: 6:29pm On Dec 28, 2018 |
SkinnyNigga: I thank God my insanity is paying off VERY WELLLLLLL 23 Likes 1 Share |
Romance / Re: Africa’s Most Expensive Bride? Six Suitors Compete To Marry 17-year-old Girl by Meewasin: 3:52pm On Oct 31, 2018 |
BetWinners: This is a myopic view at the most. Colour has nothing to do with beauty. Beauty is mostly about the shape of the face with a combination of eyes colour and hair etc Being dark or fair doesn't make one automatically beautiful or ugly. I have seen many dark skinned ladies that are very beautiful and many fair/white skinned women that are Fugly |
Romance / Re: Africa’s Most Expensive Bride? Six Suitors Compete To Marry 17-year-old Girl by Meewasin: 10:43pm On Oct 30, 2018 |
Blakjewelry: |
Romance / Re: Africa’s Most Expensive Bride? Six Suitors Compete To Marry 17-year-old Girl by Meewasin: 10:27pm On Oct 30, 2018 |
WHAT is this?? Those rich Sudanese should come to Naija biko |
Romance / Africa’s Most Expensive Bride? Six Suitors Compete To Marry 17-year-old Girl by Meewasin: 10:25pm On Oct 30, 2018 |
Nyalong Ngong Deng A 17-year-old South Sudanese beauty, Nyalong Ngong Deng, is one of the most sought-after damsels in “Africa” after six men visited her family with various mouth-watering proposals to ask her hand in marriage. Among the leading suitors competing for Nyalong’s heart is the former commissioner of Awerial and the current Deputy Governor of Eastern Lakes State, David Mayom Riak. He is in a fierce competition with a businessman, Kok Alat, who has offered 500 cows and 3 V8 cars even though the bride price in the area is typically 20 to 40 cows. According to reports, Kok Alat is a successful businessman who already has nine wives. Word on the street is that there are two more men willing to pay higher prices should they get accepted by the damsel’s parents. A photo of the 17-year-old expensive damsel was shared by a Facebook user, identified as Kwabena Frimpong Manso. In Yirol community culture, any man willing to marry must convince the girl’s family he has the desired qualities which include the ability to take care of their daughter. Thereafter the contestants are carefully ‘auditioned’ before letting them compete with a long search for the lucky son-in-law able to meet dowry terms. https://wuzupnigeria.com/africas-most-expensive-bride-six-suitors-compete-to-marry-17-year-old-girl-whose-dowry-is-520-cows-three-v8-cars/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
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Celebrities / Re: Crazy Photos Of Kcee With Hollywood Actor, Jack Sparrow In Ibiza by Meewasin: 11:43pm On Sep 11, 2018 |
Very fake Jack Sparrow. Naija celebs and fake lives 2 Likes |
Investment / Re: Business Opportunity With Zero-risk To Your Capital by Meewasin: 6:04pm On Jul 26, 2018 |
macphilip:I am not in the country at present but would like to know those things before landing so I can make up my mind. |
Investment / Re: Business Opportunity With Zero-risk To Your Capital by Meewasin: 5:23pm On Jul 26, 2018 |
macphilip: You want all these verifications from we the investors...... but how do we verify your company..........please answer these questions: *How are we sure your company will not fold up tomorrow with all our investments? *If you guys declare bankruptcy next week, who do we hold accountable for our monies or who do our lawyers sue? *Crypto currency trading alone is not a good investment because of its volatility, do you do other offline investments? *Hearing zero risk makes me shiver (as I believe there's no investment that is zero risks), can you further explain on this zero risk? *Are you saying our investments are insured with a verifiable insurance company that will pay us fully if you guys fold up (God forbid)? -an interested Investor |
Travel / Re: 10 States In Nigeria Where Pidgin-English Is Most Spoken (written In Pidgin) by Meewasin: 10:56pm On Jul 20, 2018 |
fratermathy: Bros, you don vex ooo! Shuooo, see gbege!! 2 Likes |
Sports / Re: World Cup: France Vs Belgium - 1 - 0 (Final) by Meewasin: 9:30pm On Jul 10, 2018 |
franchasng: Oga, I hope you're not planning to use it for Isi-ewu? 1 Like |
Sports / Re: Nigeria Vs Argentina: World Cup (1 - 2) On 26th June 2018 by Meewasin: 8:12pm On Jun 26, 2018 |
Na wa oo |
Autos / Re: Toks 05/06 Toyota Camry Le @ 1.3m sold! sold!! sold!!! by Meewasin: 11:13pm On Jun 25, 2018 |
Cosplay: Sorry for the suspicion. It is just that we have seen a lot on this auto section. You can consider my proposition if you're okay with it. 1 Like 1 Share |
Autos / Re: Toks 05/06 Toyota Camry Le @ 1.3m sold! sold!! sold!!! by Meewasin: 4:19pm On Jun 25, 2018 |
That your odometer looks fishy for a 13yr old car - taking into consideration cars quickly accumulate mileage abroad because of the good roads and less traffic. If you can do 1M, I am willing to buy it. 2 Likes |
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