Last week, Thursday morning, the Trail Blazers’ training facility in south Portland. Toumani Camara (23) emerges after a massage. He’s tired and his thighs are pinching – he played against the LA Lakers four days ago and he’s just finished a back-to-back with losses to Utah and Cleveland. We are the first Belgian newspaper to visit Camara in Portland. Press secretary Maggie laughingly points out to him how he apparently put on Phoenix Suns sweatpants that morning. Camara blushes and covers the Suns logo as he poses for a photo. ‘That’s the biggest step compared to college basketball: you never have time to recover, ‘to bounce back’. The rhythm in the NBA is super fast.’
Brussels square
Toumani Camara grew up in Brussels and was raised by his mother, a kindergarten teacher in Boitsfort who sacrificed a lot for him. She came to visit a few weeks ago and will be back again at Christmas. ‘She is very proud and wants to see as many of my first NBA matches as possible. She has my brother, my grandmother, uncles and aunts in Belgium, but one day when the time is right, she might come here permanently,” says Camara. His Malian father disappeared from his life early on, he has little or no contact with him anymore and prefers not to talk about it. He, his mother, brother and the sister they lost when she was barely three months old, form the four butterflies that ‘Toum’ has had tattooed on his right calf.
His brother Tidiane, who is two years older, taught Toumani how to play basketball on a square in front of their door in Boitsfort. ‘There was mainly football, I wasn’t very good at that, but the only way to conquer the square was to win.’ The Camaras often had to wait until late at night until they finally got around to playing basketball.
Camara goes for a dunk against the Utah Jazz. Yet it is mainly defensively that our compatriot makes an impression. — © getty
After stints at AS Saint-Hubert Boitsfort and United Basket Woluwe, he moved to a host family in Florida at the age of sixteen – a risky move, because few people can afford to reach the NBA. There he bumped into his high school sweetheart Jane. She hasn’t left his side since then and they have now found an apartment together in Portland again. On the days he is at home, he has to ‘clean the house’, Camara laughs. ‘And we also like to do puzzles together’. As it also applies to French super talent and fellow rookie Victor Wembanyama, Camara likes to draw. He used to dream of becoming a cartoonist, but he no longer gets around to that.
Toumaniacs
A lot has happened in recent months. In September, Camara was unexpectedly included as a bargaining chip in a mega-deal that moved Portland legend Damian Lillard to Milwaukee and brought Camara and Deandre Ayton from the Suns to the Trail Blazers. That in itself was not a bad thing. Camara is now part of the starting five and thanks to his tireless efforts and cool appearance, he already has (female) fans there who call themselves ‘Toumaniacs’. In that respect he is somewhat reminiscent of Scottie Pippen, one of the previous owners of number 33 at Portland.
Camara looks back: ‘I spent a week in Belgium in mid-September and immediately after training at Phoenix I received the news about the deal. That was shocking, I had just settled in Phoenix and at first you mainly think about what you are losing – playing for the title with Kevin Durant and Devin Booker, for example – but in the meantime I am happy that I ended up in Portland: here I am more among young players in a similar situation.’
Like many American cities, Portland has a huge homeless and drug problem, but otherwise it looks quite European. There are trams and there are actually cycle paths. It’s also the whitest big city in America, and also the most progressive – see the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 and Louis Theroux’s documentaries on polyamory.
“It was so hot in Phoenix that you could hardly go outside, but Portland is more like Belgium in terms of weather,” says Camara. ‘I have also noticed that everyone here really dares to be themselves and is socially and ecologically committed. “I can’t vote and I’m not really into politics, but maybe that will change here in Portland.”
Hustle from Brussels
As intense as he is on the court, Toumani Camara is so amiable and down-to-earth next to it. In a recent clip that his club posted on Instagram, Camara wore a microphone during a match and you could constantly hear him speaking to his teammates. “I don’t want to call myself a leader, but I’m older than a lot of guys and I feel comfortable enough to be vocal. Call it brotherhood.’
Camara’s team, only 23 themselves, is young. The two biggest talents Shaedon Sharpe (20) and Scoot Henderson (19) are still very green, and the Blazers are also suffering from a major wave of injuries. It plays into Camara’s hands personally, but it also means the Blazers have only managed to win four times this season.
Camara (second from right) is having fun with his teammates at Portland. ‘I’m sitting here among the young players in a similar situation.’ — © NBA
“We are a team under construction and we participated in every match except for the first game against the Clippers,” Camara said. In the meantime, they also suffered a blowout against Oklahoma, but soon when everyone is fit, the season will actually start again.
Apart from that, Camara is doing well individually: ‘I want to play winning basketball and help the team with my energy.’ It doesn’t bother him that he mainly has to perform defensive duties and can go for his shots less than in his last years in college basketball. He is now ‘The Hustle from Brussels’ rather than ‘Toomanybuckets’: ‘After the match I first look at my rebounds, they tell me whether I was aggressive enough. Strong defense is what the coach asks of me, I have to build on that, but it is the first step in what I want to become: with my defense I just want to lay the foundation for more, for the rest of my career.’
Ambetanterik
Camara heads home to rest, a day later he will become the second NBA Belgian ever after Didier Mbenga to face LeBron James. Mbenga was once suspended after he punched James in the head. At 38, LeBron is still there. In the glitzy Moda Center in Portland, which is half filled with Lakers fans, he gives a masterclass, good for 35 points and an easy victory for the Lakers (107-95). They are in the lead in their group for the new NBA cup tournament, Portland can cross the big prize money with one win in three matches and the finals in Las Vegas at the beginning of December.
However, it will not have been Camara’s fault. He makes D’Angelo Russell’s life miserable, smashes into Anthony Davis’ screens and also gets under LeBron’s skin. “Toumani brought us back into the game in the second quarter,” Portland coach Chauncey Billups praised him afterwards. “He single-handedly put pressure all over the field, slowed down their attack and took minutes off the clock. He was a one man wrecking crew out there.’ A demolition crew on its own.
Local radio reporter Danny Marang is also impressed: ‘For a rookie, he has a lot of knowledge of the game. He is selfless and fits in where he is needed: a quality that is given to few. He also has a tendency to ‘poke the bear’: he dares to get on everyone’s nerves.’
After the match, Camara appears briefly in the hallway. He looks sad. While everyone is lost in a collective idolization of LeBron, he does not participate. He sounds critical of himself and his team: ‘It wasn’t good enough.’ And off he goes, into the Portland night.
