Festus Ezeli

Ifeanyi Festus Ezeli-Ndulue (born October 21, 1989) is a Nigerian professional basketball player who is currently a free agent. He played college basketball for Vanderbilt before being selected with the 30th overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft by the Golden State Warriors. Ezeli won an NBA Championship with the Warriors in 2015.\n', ' One of five children, Ezeli remembered in a 2011 interview with Andy Katz of ESPN.com, "My parents told me I was an unusual child. My first name is Ifeanyi, and that means \'nothing is impossible with God\'. That sets the tone for my journey while I\'m alive." He concentrated on academics, graduating from high school while still age 14, and aspiring to become a physician. To further his career goals, his parents sent him to live with his uncle, a pediatrician, in Yuba City, California in 2004.\n', ' Shortly after Ezeli arrived in Yuba City, his uncle encouraged him to take up what seemed to be the most appropriate sport for a 6\'8" (2.03 m) teenager—basketball. This proved much more difficult for him than academics; although he had played soccer as a child, he had never played any organized sports. He took a year of classes at Jesuit High School in Sacramento, but did not play basketball; different sources report that he was either ineligible to play because he had graduated from high school in Nigeria or cut during tryouts. The start of his organized basketball career, with a low-level AAU team, was especially inauspicious; his first points were scored in his own team\'s basket. Recalling that incident, he said, "Everybody was running up the court, and I was just running with them. It\'s kind of surreal. Sometimes I think about it now and I\'m like, Damn. How did I get here?"\n', '