After shinning as one of the premier scorers in the Asian Basketball League, Andrew ‘Mr. Dunk’ Ifill has returned home for a breath of fresh air during the off-season break.
The 197cm (6’6) small forward played his rookie international basketball season with the Saudi Arabian’s An Naser Riyah basketball team with whom he signed a one-year deal last October.
“When I joined the team in late October, the season had already started and my coach told me that I have a lot of work to do,” Ifill told Stabroek Sport in an exclusive interview.
The former Bounty Colts player did not back down from the challenge and instantly assumed the role of the primary scorer for his team.
The result was him finishing the season with an average 25 points per game (PPG), 10 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 1.5 blocks and 2.75 steals.
“It was no easy task for me to get those numbers among some of Asia’s and Europe’s best players but I knew that I had the talent and I worked real hard over the years to get there so it was just a matter of me getting the work done when I got the opportunity,” he recounted Ifill also revealed that the he had received offers from a few other teams in the league and may be changing teams depending on how lucrative the offers are.
Like the other international leagues, the Asian League has many former NBA players such as Mahmoud Abdul-Raul and Chris Jackson.
Ifill said that he thought his game had improved tremendously from playing professional basketball.
“I have learnt lot from the experience of playing there because the fundamentals of the players are extremely high,” he said.
“However, I recognized that many of the players are not as athletic as the players in the NBA [National Basketball Association] and in some cases as some of the players that we have right here in Guyana.”
“Since I have been back I keep telling people that we have many players that can make it to play basketball professionally if they get the chance,” he declared.
“I have seen it with my own two eyes; we have a lot of talent here but only a few get the chance to shine abroad. “I think that if sports in general and more specifically basketball in Guyana get more attention from the government our athletes can really go places,” He said.
After discovering his love for the game at age seven, Ifill grew into one of the most promising `ballers’ that this country has produced.
He confessed that after being on the team which captured the Inter-Guiana Games title in 1996, he became determined to fulfil his dream of becoming a professional basketball player.
Ifill plans to focus on strength and speed training in the off-season followed by ball handling work as the break comes to a close.
He said that without persons who had helped and supported him from the start, including his family, his coach Phillip George, his fans, Rhondell Murphy, Godfrey Munroe, and Anthony de Hart it would not have been possible for him to achive his dream of playing professional basketball.
As far as making the jump to the NBA is concerned, Ifill said he would leave the negotiations up to his agents and would remain focused on trying to dominate in that league until an opportunity presents itself.
