I was successful materially, but I know life is much more than worldly success. I saw all these blessings God had given me. The way to give thanks is obedience to God.

In many ways, my job in soccer was like my job in basketball now. I had to protect the goal. That was the name of the game, not letting the other team score.

When I look at the system here and look at my position - not just as a basketball player, but when I look around me at the values of the people and the culture and compare them with the values of where I came from - I feel so blessed to be from Africa.

When I was playing, I didn't realize how much of an impact I would make on people, Muslim or non-Muslim. We played a lot of games during Ramadan. On national TV, the announcers were commenting about Ramadan, and this raised the awareness to the general public and we made all the Muslims very, very proud.

Basketball is in my blood. It is my obligation to try.

I was doing just my duty, but that was impacting a lot of people and making them proud. So, I feel so grateful to Allah for giving me that opportunity while I had that chance to make that impact. And thankfully it impacted all the people - more than I realized.

When people start comparing him with (Michael) Jordan then that's not a fair comparison. Jordan was a far more superior player in a very tough league, he was very creative. That's not taking away anything from LeBron because he is a great player, but it is not a fair comparison because Jordan is a far superior player.