Washington Wizards: Catching Up With Mustafa Shakur

When Mustafa Shakur envisioned his first NBA game, he didn’t think he would be wearing a jersey that was sewn together just hours before tip-off. But, as Shakur quickly learned, things don’t always go according to plan in professional sports.

Shakur, a former Arizona standout, has taken an unconventional route to the NBA.

Like most professional athletes, Shakur was quickly thrust onto a difficult path – one that he didn’t necessarily expect coming out of college. His road, though, immediately started with a fork.

After going unselected in the 2007 NBA Draft, Shakur quickly signed with the Sacramento Kings. He made it all the way through preseason cuts, which isn’t something most undrafted players typically do.

On the first day of opening night during the start of the regular season, the Kings were met by the Chris Paul led New Orleans Hornets. Shakur did suit up for the game, but didn’t get a chance to enter. Regardless, Shakur had finally fulfilled his life-long dream. He was set to play in the NBA.

“I got a bunch of texts from everybody, like, ‘man, congratulations, you made it all the way through all of the cuts,” Shakur said in a phone interview.

Unfortunately, Mike Bibby, who started for the Kings at the time, got hurt right before the beginning of the regular season and was going to miss at least two to three months of action.

Instead of leaning on the young guard, the Kings wanted a more experienced player at Shakur’s position and signed Beno Udrih to fill the void.

“They brought me in and they said ‘we’re sorry, we really wanted to keep you, but we have to let you go.’ In my mind, going into it, I was thinking they would say ‘just be ready, professional and we’re going to work you into the lineup. But that didn’t happen. They had to make a business move for the organization and I understood it.”

Suddenly, Shakur – a former McDonald’s All-American – had to make life-altering decisions about his basketball career.

In about three weeks, Shakur had to decide between going to the NBA Developmental League, essentially waiting to see if anyone will call him up, or going to play basketball overseas.

His agent received a call from Asseco Gdynia – a top Euroleague team in Poland. The frustrated Shakur just wanted to get his career started.

“It definitely was a shocking experience – going from being in Sacramento, flying on private jets, staying at the top hotels, you’re with top players that you’ve always watched on TV, you’re playing against them in preseason and now I’m in Poland,” Shakur said. “It’s dark, dreary and cold. It was difficult the first couple of months, but luckily I had a couple of young Polish guys that made it an easy transition for me.”

Shakur recognized that a good fit is all he needed to stick in the NBA, so worked on his game, just as continues to do. With books by his side, Shakur was able to get through a time in his life that caused much vexation.

Once his stint overseas was over, which included a stop in Greece, Shakur received a number of opportunities during the NBA Summer League and with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

In Oklahoma City, Shakur expected to be a long-term prospect.

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With Russell Westbrook and Eric Maynor already in the rotation, Shakur never got an opportunity to actually step on the court and contribute.

He was eventually let go and signed with the Tulsa 66ers afterwards.

He spent more time with the Thunder during Summer League in 2010, signed with the New Orleans Hornets, was waived, acquired by the 66ers, only to be later traded to the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.

Like in his previous situation, the Thunder signed another point guard right before the season began, which ended Shakur’s chances of suiting up for the team.

Shortly after, an opportunity with the Washington Wizards became a reality.

“I thought I would have a shot here and they signed Royal Ivey the next day. I was like, ‘wow,’ just kind of stuck. I ended up going to the D-League again and that’s when the opportunity came back around with the Wizards.”

Shakur, just like at the beginning of his career, had more decisions to make. Both the Thunder and Wizards expressed interest in signing Shakur, but he ended up going to the nation’s capital where the door seemed more open.

Prior to landing in D.C., Shakur recalled the moment he realized that his NBA moment would actually come.

“The night before, we were in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I was with the Houston Rockets’ D-League team, which is the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. We had a back-to-back – it was incredibly cold there. It was just like normal after the game,” Shakur said.”

“We went to grab a bite to eat, I went up to the room to pray and I think my agent texted me after that. I got the news that the Wizards wanted to sign me. I was excited, but I felt like I was ready for it. I had been playing so many minutes in the D-League. I was playing like 35 minutes a game. I was playing a lot of minutes, so I was in really, really good shape.”

Shakur had gotten the notice that he was heading to Washington right before the second game in as many nights, causing him to leave his shoes back in South Dakota. After saying goodbye to his team, Shakur headed to D.C. without even having a chance to eat.

“I got in at about 2 o’clock. I asked one of the trainers if someone could get me a sandwich or something because I hadn’t eaten yet, because I had been flying all day. I got a sandwich, went back to the hotel, had an hour or two nap and came back over. Coach Flip Saunders told me we would just run simple stuff when I was in the game. We went over a couple of plays and that was it. They didn’t want to throw too much at me because I would possibly be playing that night depending on how it went.”

The Washington Wizards were battling with injuries and dysfunction.

With Kirk Hinrich out due to injury and more than double losses than wins, the Wizards could afford to give Shakur the chance – and he made the most out of it.

Shakur scored five points, dished out five assists and blocked two shots in just 10 minutes of action against the Boston Celtics on January 22, 2011.

Ironically, that date – his jersey number – became memorable for more than just it being the first time Shakur played in an NBA game.

Washington signed Shakur on a moment’s notice, as Shakur stated, forcing them to quickly put his jersey together. Instead of getting a crisp, new jersey, Shakur got a botched one and became infamous online almost instantly after the moment occurred.

“When I first got the jersey, I think I was a little pissed because it was my first time putting one on. But how can you be mad? It was an NBA jersey, so whatever. I didn’t think too much of it. I threw the warmup jersey on top of it, so my teammates didn’t really see it. It didn’t even register with them that the jersey was messed up. They didn’t know probably until I got inserted into the game.”

Shakur wanted to keep the jersey and frame it, but someone on the team’s training staff decided to throw it away. It wasn’t the proudest moment in the team’s history and the person who tossed it out was considerably angry.

That jersey might have actually belonged to John Wall, who Shakur subbed in for after Wall, a rookie, got into foul trouble early in the game.

“The jersey was actually a number two jersey. It might have been an extra John Wall jersey or something like that. They had to add an extra two to it in a moment’s time,” he said.

“They signed me at such a late period and there wasn’t enough time to get it properly done, so I think they had to send the jersey to someone get it done really quick. There wasn’t just a number 22 jersey sitting around. No one had worn it at the time. They got someone to sew a two on it really quick. Whoever did it, they kind of made a boo boo – they messed up a little bit. That’s kind of what happened.”

Shakur, who continued to express gratitude to the Washington Wizards for giving him his first real opportunity in the NBA, also noted how thankful he was for the late Flip Saunders.

“He had a lot of impact on me because he gave me an opportunity without really fully knowing me personally. To just throw me out there off the plane – he looked down the bench, he didn’t blink twice, he didn’t walk past me three four times and think about it. John Wall got into foul trouble early, he walked down the bench and said ‘Mustafa, get him.’ That doesn’t happen often.”

Once his stint with the Washington Wizards ended, Shakur played for teams in France, Italy and a number of others in the D-League.

During the middle of the 2014 NBA season, Shakur ended up back with the Thunder on a 10-day deal, but it wasn’t renewed.

In just a couple of years, Shakur had already experienced more traveling in his basketball career than most will experience in their lifetime. That constantly travel and uncertainty is something that most can relate to, especially in the corporate world.

“The anxiety of it – it can be tough. Of course, this is just a sport at the end of the day, so people might not see the parallels in it. Fortunately, I didn’t have kids and a family to take care of. It began not to be as much of a frustration and it became something that drove me. To this day, it still drives me.”

The 31-year-old Pennsylvania native played in Lithuania this past year and joined the MHP Riesen Ludwigsburg in Germany for this season. Unfortunately, Shakur broke his hand in January, forcing him to miss a couple of months of action and the playoffs that are currently underway in Europe.

Shakur doesn’t anticipate playing in the D-League and would prefer individual workouts with teams, but in the meantime, he’s continued to work on his craft.

“I’m training every day and working on certain things that I want to fine-tune. I’ll go from there. I’m not waiting around and hoping. Hoping doesn’t work. I’m training. I train all-year round.”

An avid reader, Shakur has cited Phil Jackson‘s Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success as a key source of motivation.

“That helped me realize the need to be professional, living in the moment, staying in the moment and focusing in on what you can control – and what you can control is the work that you put in right now and your approach to life everyday. If I do those things really well every day, once the opportunity comes, it’s just about if it’s a good fit or not.”

“I think having fun keeps you happy and young, as they say. I’m always willing to do some fun things to take my mind off of basketball and kind of live life in-between.”

Shakur plans on working with Brooklyn Nets shooting coach Dave Nurse in the coming week and knows that he has the capability to make it back into the NBA. At this point, it’s just a matter of getting the right opportunity. That often makes the difference between a short career and one that lasts seemingly forever.

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“The plan is to always be at the top level and to play at the top level. I know that I can. I’m feeling like my body is in great condition. I know that I can.”