It’s fitting that one of the first people to reach out to Christian Koloko after he was drafted by Toronto on Thursday was new Raptors teammate Pascal Siakam.
The two come from the same town of Douala in Cameroon. They both played soccer, their country’s more popular game, growing up. Koloko played striker or a goalie. His favourite team is FC Barcelona, and favourite player Lionel Messi. Neither Cameroonians played basketball seriously until late in their teens.
“(Siakam) means everything,” Koloko said on a virtual availability from Los Angeles, where he’d celebrated with his family on Thursday night.