Ten years ago, Josh Okogie was visiting relatives in Nigeria and received a small request from one of his uncles.
"He said if you have any opportunity to play with Nigeria, please do. We would love to see you play for the country," Okogie said. "And that always just resonated with me and that's what actually pushed me to try to play with the Nigerian national team."
Now, Okogie is about to head to Tokyo to represent Nigeria in the Olympics. He's one of multiple players or staff in the Wolves organization who will be participating for other countries in the Olympics.
Okogie was in Las Vegas preparing for the Olympics along with assistant coach Pablo Prigioni and 2020 first-round pick Leandro Bolmaro, who are a part of the Argentinian team, and Ricky Rubio and Juancho Hernangomez, who are playing for Spain, though Hernangomez is currently recovering from a shoulder injury.
There's been plenty of trash talking among the group.
"Argentina beat us in the World Cup in 2019 so Pablo's always been talking since then," Okogie said. "It's just fun to be able to relate to those guys on another level other than the NBA. I mean, it's nothing other than that. Just trash talk. It's always love in the end."
Okogie's Nigerian team scored one of the first upsets leading up to the Olympic basketball tournament when it beat the U.S. squad. The exhibition game victory announced Nigeria isn't just happy to be in the Olympics.
"In the grand scope of things, it doesn't do anything. It doesn't put us in a better position to win the medal, it doesn't advance us to the next round," said Okogie, who had four points and three assists in the win. "But on another kind of scope, it was very big for the country. My uncles and my aunts who still live in Nigeria have been texting me saying how proud they are that we won. For the country, it's definitely big that we were able to defeat the USA."
Okogie is alongside players such as Miami's Precious Achiuwa and former lottery picks Ekpe Udoh and Jahlil Okafor.
Okogie's role on Nigeria is a little different from the one he plays on the Wolves. With Minnesota, he's an off-ball guard who sometimes plays power forward depending on who the Wolves ask him to guard. Nigeria is asking him to help run its offense.
"It's nothing that I haven't done before and I'm comfortable with it," Okogie said. "I'm ready to keep doing it and keep preparing. Hopefully I'll get to have the ball in my hands a little bit when the season starts. ... I feel like I do have the skill set to play a lot of different positions."
If Nigeria is going to make noise in the Olympics, it will likely be on the defensive end of the floor, the part of the floor on which Okogie contributes the most for the Wolves.
"We want everybody to know how hard we play on the defensive end first," Okogie said. "That's something we can always control. We like switching everything, pressuring full court and, offensively, a team that likes to get in the paint, kick out and knock down threes."
Nigeria has never won a medal at the Olympics. It would mean a lot to his family, Nigeria and him if he's on the medal stand in Tokyo.
"That would mean the world to me," Okogie said.
