Raptors Prospect Continues Remarkable Journey From Farmer to Stardom

Toronto Raptors second-round pick Ulrich Chomche is the latest Cameroonian prospect hoping to make a name for himself in the NBA

Toronto Raptors second-round pick Ulrich Chomche dribbles a basketball at the NBA Academy Africa / NBA Academy

Ulrich Chomche never dreamed of being an NBA player as child.

To dream, one must know that the opportunity even exists. But growing up in the rural town of Bafang, Cameroon, basketball is hardly an option.

Chomche is a farmer.

He used the present tense when he spoke to reporters about his childhood last month in Las Vegas. It doesn’t matter that the Toronto Raptors selected the 18-year-old with the 57th pick in the NBA draft earlier this year because Chomche hasn’t forgotten his roots.

“I come from a place where everyone is a farmer,” said Chomche who told reporters he grew up growing beans, banana, coffee, cocoa, corn, and sweet potato on his farm. “That’s where everything started."

To call Chomche a basketball player of any caliber when he first arrived at the NBA Academy Africa in Senegal in October 2019 would be an exaggeration.

He was not.

But there was something special about Chomche when Joe Touomou — associate technical director of the NBA Africa Academy — first tipped off scouts at the academy about the tall boy he’d heard about from Chomche’s uncle.

“Once we saw Ulrich it was a no-brainer,” said Roland Houston, the technical director of the NBA Academy Africa. “His length and he just looked like he was going to grow and develop.”

Over the past five years, that’s exactly what happened.

Chomche has developed into one of the most successful prospects from the NBA Academy Africa. He turned down multiple NCAA offers to pursue an opportunity with the NBA. Now 6-foot-10 with a 7-foot-4 wingspan, the 18-year-old is beginning to show skills that suggest he’s quite a bit more than just a tall, athletic farmer.

“What stood out also was his foot quickness,” Houston said. “You could see that he could guard multiple positions and he’s a guy that will just get better and better with skill development.”

Defense has come easy to Chomche.

He moves well for a big man and is aggressive on the court, willing to step out onto the perimeter and switch across positions. He still has a lot of work to do on his positioning, but it’s clear the raw skills are there.

“Blocking shots at the rate he does without fouling, it’s almost like an innate ability for him,” said Brendan McKillop, the NBA Associate Vice President, Head of Elite Basketball. “I think very few people have the ability to do with his length, with his ability to get off the ground repeatedly and to do it with the timing that he does.”

Chomche showed that in his first Summer League with the Raptors, recording seven blocks across five games in Las Vegas, albeit with some foul trouble.

The other end of the court is a bit more of a work-in-progress for Chomche.

He has pretty good hands for a big man and can move the ball effectively. He made a stellar pass to a driving DJ Carton in transition against the Miami Heat in one Summer League game and looked comfortable at times playmaking out of the post in limited opportunities.

The swing skill for Chomche’s offense is going to be his shooting. He was 1-for-2 from three-point range at Summer Leauge, looked adequate as a shooter at the draft combine, and can be described as a “capable” three-point shooter, McKillop said. At the very least, Chomche is willing to take threes when he’s given the opportunity, and with enough repetitions, there’s no reason to think he can’t develop into an adequate floor-spacing center at the next level.

That’s what Toronto is hoping for over the next couple of seasons with Chomche signed to a two-year, two-way contract that’ll likely see him spend most of the next two seasons in the G League further refining his game with the Raptors 905.

Based on his track record, there’s reasons to be optimistic too.

Since joining the academy, Chomche has transformed his life. He’s gone from someone who had never seen basketball, let alone played, into a 16-year-old playing against grown men in the Basketball Africa League, and now a professional basketball player pursuing a career with the Raptors.

“He was not afraid to meet other men at the rim,” McKillop recalled. “He had, I think, three or four blocks in one game that only an NBA player could make.”

“You see things like that, and then the next game, you'll see him with complete comfort, catch the ball at the top of the key and knock down a three,” McKillop continued. “He really shows flashes. I think the next step for him is going to be consistency.”

It’s been a few years since the Raptors hit on a prospect like Chomche. For so long, it seemed to be the organization’s calling card. Toronto had a knack for turning late first-round picks, second-round picks, and undrafted prospects into NBA contributors.

Lately, though, something has changed.

A combination of bad luck and a few missed opportunities have the Raptors once again searching for one of those diamond-in-the-rough players who can augment Toronto's core moving forward.

Will Chomche be that player?

Nobody knows. If he was a sure thing, he would have been taken at the top of the NBA draft earlier this summer, rather than at the end. But it’s clear Toronto sees something in the long, athletic, and willing to develop Chomche, and if history is any indication of what’s to come, the farmer from Bafang is going to do everything he can to make the most of this opportunity.