Serge Angounou sits on the couch in his Tempe apartment.
A half-eaten steak remains on the kitchen table. His high school and collegiate basketball awards are displayed prominently in the living room. The apartment is neither messy nor clean. One closet is reserved solely for shoes. Nikes mostly, with the Air Jordan brand seemingly Serge's preferred choice.
He is watching the MTV show Yo Momma, in which contestants battle one another, attempting to outwit opponents with jokes about their dress, physique, family. One contestant makes a comment about his female counterpart's moustache, and Serge laughs heartily. He is truly engulfed by the show. His laugh is deep and booming, unlike his generally quiet speaking voice.
Serge is tall and lanky. His muscles are defined. Serge's head is shaved and his teeth are pearly white. Serge is the eternal optimist. He smiles a lot.
There's no hint of the burden of expectations on his shoulders.
If you took a poll five years ago, the common consensus would have Serge in the NBA by now. He might still be watching 'Yo Momma', but it would be from a three-story mansion in Malibu, not in a cramped two-bedroom apartment he shares with teammate Robby Aldridge.
This is the last year for Serge Angounou to realize his dream on the basketball court. This is his last chance to make it into the NBA.
At the age of 23, with a B.A. in Spanish under his belt, the ASU student is working on a Master's degree in business administration. He has exhausted his college eligibility, and anything less than a stellar showing will lead him either to overseas basketball - where the competition isn't as fierce and the money isn't the same - or into another profession altogether.
He is beset with an uncertain future because of something that happened on a gloomy day in November 2002, when his NBA career went from near-certainty to one dotted with holes. That's when he learned that even in America, nothing is ever promised to you.
After an hour of Yo Momma, Serge rises from his couch to get ready for practice. He's going an hour early today to do some extra strengthening on his knee.
The weight room sits inside the tunnel at Wells Fargo Arena, Serge's de facto home away from home. It is here that he practices, lifts weights and goes to meetings. Some days, he will spend more time at the arena than at home.
When practice begins, Serge grabs an elastic band, lies down on the hardwood floor and begins stretching out his knee. The task is cumbersome, but necessary. The knee is always on his mind. In some ways, it controls him.
Today's practice is open to the public, and hundreds of spectators watch his every move. Serge is Mr. Energy. He's always hustling, diving for loose balls and playing tough defense. The way his knee responds is something he cannot control. But the way he plays on the court is something he can.
New ASU coach Herb Sendek yells at Serge for missing a defensive assignment. He listens intently and makes the correction.
And then, while practicing a full court trap, he eyes a pass intended for the opposing team. Serge swoops in for the steal at mid-court, dribbles from one side of the lane to the other and lays the ball in over the outstretched arms of center Eric Boateng.
One isolated brilliant play at practice? Or is this a sign that the promising athlete still exists? In that one isolated play, the younger Serge reappears. And he reminds those who watch of what could have been.
Or is it what still might be?
Media day
Serge Angounou saunters into the interview room at Wells Fargo Arena and waits patiently in a corner of the room. With him are fellow Arizona State men's basketball players Antwi Atuahene and Jeff Pendergraph. It is ASU media day, and the players prepare for the first of multiple interviews they will endure throughout the season. The room isn't glamorous. A few desks, a table and some stat sheets lying around. Nothing like the NBA.
Various reporters converge on Serge first, with the usual barrage of questions. "How do you like the new coach?" "What do you expect out of the team this season?" "How do the newcomers look?"
Serge speaks quietly but optimistically.
He's very excited, he tells them.
Watch out for the Sun Devils, he says.
After a few questions, attention shifts over to Pendergraph - the future of the program. Pendergraph, a 6-foot-9 forward out of Etiwanda, Calif., made a splash last year as a freshman. He averaged 10.9 points and 6.1 rebounds and was named to the all-Pac-10 freshmen team. The reporters pepper him with questions, wanting to know every intricate detail of his summer.
Serge is mostly a forgotten man.
But he used to be like Pendergraph--The Future.
In 2002, Serge and Ike Diogu were supposed to turn this program around. ASU, long known as an afterthought in the Pac-10 Conference, was going to be put back on the map - and Serge and Ike were going to put them there.
Diogu lived up to the promise. Pac-10 Player of the Year in 2005. A second-team All-American. One of the most decorated Sun Devil basketball players of all time. And then, after his junior season, Ike got his shot. The Golden State Warriors drafted him ninth overall in the 2005 NBA Draft.
Diogu, one of the chosen, became an instant millionaire. Each year 60 players are drafted by teams to the NBA. Some of them don't even make it.
In all, three out of 10,000 high school basketball players make the NBA, according to www.NCAA.org.
And Serge still waits for that chance.
If it's still there.
The path
After all, this was a player who had picked up his first basketball at the age of 14. He's a native of Yaounde, the capital city of Cameroon, Africa. It's a place Serge looks upon fondly and compares to any other major city, with its good and bad parts alike. Like many in his hometown, soccer was Serge's first love. But when his mother came back from a trip to the United States, she brought back a basketball.
He was 6-feet-7. She figured he may as well try the game.
"At first I just kicked it," Serge says. "Like I was playing soccer."
But the game came easily to him. Serge was fast enough to play as a guard and powerful enough to play as a forward. He could score from inside and out. In short, he was a basketball coach's dream. Midway through his junior year, Serge moved from Cameroon to New Mexico by himself.
It wasn't easy on his parents financially. His parents – both physical education teachers – had to get creative to scrape up enough money to get Serge to America. Serge's mother had to take all the money from his sister's bank account to help him make the move.
"That's what she's like," Serge says. "Whatever her kids want to do, she'll make the sacrifice."
Serge moved in with Brandon Cox, a friend Serge's mom had met when she was visiting. The only person he knew was his cousin, Giovanni.
But the move wasn't made for basketball. First and foremost, he wanted an education.
"I didn't think I had the talent to play Division I basketball," Serge remembers.
But the basketball accolades began piling on. He was the state of New Mexico's 2002 Gatorade Player of the Year as a senior at Rio Grande High School, averaging 22 points, 14 rebounds, 5.2 blocks and 4.2 steals that season.
Dozens of schools recruited him to come to their program, but Arizona State landed the prized recruit.
"ASU was the first one to show up. After that they were there all the time," Serge says.
"I trusted (high school coach Ron) Garcia, and he said it would be a good place for me, so I said OK.
"The reason I wanted to come here was because when they were talking to me, they didn't promise me anything. I don't like that, I want to feel like I earned something."
With his college choice firmly in grasp, the last hurdle Serge had to jump was getting out of New Mexico safely. Senseless violence was rampant at Serge's high school. Gangs were plentiful, and because Serge had a future to think about, he vowed to stay away from the fighting. And while it seemed unlikely that anyone would pick a fight with the 6-foot-7 Serge, he made up a colorful - but fake - story about his time in Cameroon.
"I told them I killed a lion with my bare hands," says a smiling Serge.
As the fictional story went, Serge went outside to use the restroom earlier than usual. Out of the corner of the eye he saw the lion, and had nothing but his hands to defend himself. When his schoolmates would ask what happened next, Serge would reply, "I'm still here, aren't I?"
The story made its rounds, and he escaped New Mexico without getting into trouble.
The promise
During the summer between his junior and senior years of high school, Serge and his club basketball team made a trip to Las Vegas for a tournament. It was there he got his first glimpse at Ike Diogu, who he would unknowingly become teammates with a year down the road.
Diogu and Serge were set to square off in the championship game of the club tournament, but Serge's squad was defeated in the semifinals. So instead of playing him, Serge got a spectator's view of Ike's abilities.
"I said, "Who's that guy? He's ballin' pretty good,'" Serge recalls. "They said yeah, he's going to ASU."
Serge and Ike were two of four incoming freshmen to the ASU basketball team, and the quartet soon formed an inseparable bond. They lived in the Sonora Center dormitory together, and Kruger and Allen Morill were their suitemates. None of the players had a car, so they were forced to walk over a mile from the dorm to the gym. But Serge didn't mind too much, because he could see the potential that awaited this squad.
"During that summer, I was like "Man, this team's going far,'" Serge recalls. And it did.
The 2002 Sun Devils made the NCAA Tournament, winning their first round game over Memphis before losing in the second round to Kansas. Under previous ASU men's basketball standards, this was the equivalent to the football team making the Rose Bowl.
Diogu had a tremendous freshman season, finishing the year with averages of 19 points and 7.8 rebounds while shooting better than 60 percent from the floor.
Serge, though, never set foot on the court during the regular season. Before his career could get started, it almost ended.
The injury
It was a meaningless exhibition game during Serge's freshman season. One that pitted ASU against a pushover. It was designed to build player confidence, to get the kinks worked out. But Serge didn't play the game like an exhibition. It wasn't in his nature. And it's what may have ruined his shot at the big time.
The game was essentially over. ASU had the win in hand, and the technicality of the buzzer sounding was less than a minute away. At the next stop in play, Serge was going to get substituted out anyways.
But when the opponent went for an easy fastbreak lay-up, Serge chased after. It was pure instinct. Something that had gotten him here in the first place.
"Everybody was just watching him, but I said no, he's not going to score that easily," Serge said. "So I took off running and went to block it. I was ready to jump, but maybe there was a slick spot on the floor, because I went to jump and I slipped. It was the worst pain in the world."
His knee.
Serge went to bed that night hoping his knee was just sprained. But the pain was so bad he hardly slept, and in the morning, Serge was delivered the news. He had torn ligaments in his right knee, and would need microfacture surgery to repair the damage. The injury is a debilitating one, something that will affect a person for their entire life. Doctors told him that ending his career now would save him pain in the future.
But Serge would not give up. He told himself he would come back from this.
In one moment, Serge Angounou went from a near-NBA lock to a giant question mark. In basketball, a damaged knee is the equivalent to a baseball pitcher hurting his arm - it affects everything.
"At first I was really mad that it happened - I was mad at God at first," Serge says. "It messed up all my plans. I have a family back home that I would love to take care of - my mom and my sisters. I said, 'What did you have to do that for?'
"But then I calmed down. I said, 'You know what, there's no need to be mad. Everything happens for a reason."
He began rehabbing voraciously, and things seemed to be going well. But four months after the incident, progress slowed. A diagnostic scope was taken, and there was seemingly no damage.
Serge felt fine, and wanted to continue rehabbing. But the doctors disagreed, and they looked again.
In June, another microfracture surgery.
When told of the injury, Serge's head dropped. He had to start from scratch. And again Serge rehabbed, all the time wondering if his knee would ever be the same.
"You could see it affected him, he just wouldn't show it," former ASU trainer Koichi Sato recalls.
Finally, almost a year and a half after the injury, Serge made his return. Not as the player he once was, but a contributor nonetheless.
"I knew God brought me here for a reason," Serge says.
He wasn't meant to sit on the sidelines. He would finish up his collegiate career on the court. His progress has been slow. His natural position is small forward, where the players count on their athleticism at every turn. Pre-injury, Serge's game relied on his ability to explode to the rim.
Nowadays, settling for the jump shot may be the more likely scenario.
Four years after the injury, and Serge says he is finally back to 100 percent. He averaged seven points per game last season, when he estimates his knee was at 90 percent.
But now, after a full summer of conditioning exercises and lifting weights, Serge feels this is his best shot to reunite with old teammate Diogu in the NBA.
Watching Ike
By most accounts, it was Serge, not Ike, who was the dominant incoming freshman. The team played pickup games and teammates raved of Serge's raw talent.
"Had he not gotten injured, he would have already been in the NBA," Allen Morill says. "That's obvious."
Serge was the most highly recruited freshmen of the four, and his play over the summer made it seem like he would make an immediate impact.
But then the injury occurred, and as Serge's star dimmed, Ike's shone brighter than ever. He was Arizona State's biggest basketball star since Eddie House. He was revered by fans, teammates and media alike.
While the team never experienced the type of success Ike and Serge envisioned, it was Diogu's individual success that brought interest to the program.
When they came to ASU, it was Serge grabbing the headlines, Serge referred to as the future, Serge looked upon to right the ship. Instead it was Ike who accomplished the feats, Ike who earned the accolades, Ike who had his future totally secured at the tender age of 21. Serge was happy for the man he called "brother," but still felt mixed emotions.
"Yeah, it can get frustrating sometimes," Serge says. "But now, I try not to even think about it. I just think, "Man I'm so glad he made it. I know my time is coming, too. I just have to be patient. My time will come."
Serge harbors no ill will towards Diogu. The two talk all the time, and Diogu still returns in the offseason to hang out with his former roommate.
"He likes the (Warriors) a lot, but it's kind of different," Serges says. "Of course, he would prefer to be with us, the boys out here. It would be the same thing with me if I went somewhere. These are the boys, the college career, the people that you hang out with most of the time are the ones that you become so close-knit with.
"Every time he gets a little bit of free time he will come back and hang out with us."
Now or never
The lights dim at Wells Fargo Arena and the music begins blaring. Arizona State cheerleaders hold up signs that read 'Go' and 'Devils', encouraging the fans to rise from their seats. A wide-eyed child in the front row seems more enamored with the light show than the upcoming game. It is the preseason opener, and giddy fans eagerly await the starting lineup introductions for ASU. Jeff Pendergraph is announced, and so is Antwi Atuahene.
But Serge Angounou never hears his name.
His final season, his last shot to impress scouts, and Serge cannot crack the starting lineup of a mediocre college basketball team. He is replaced in the lineup by Jerren Shipp, a freshman small forward five years his junior, part of the new wave brought in by Sendek and his staff.
His dream of joining the NBA is fading fast, but he doesn't want to let go
Still, even now, he says: "It's a place I can be."
But he has contingency plans. He won't let himself slip into the cracks. He is working on his MBA. Basketball may be a part of him, but it will not destroy him.
"I have a lot of plans," Serge said. "I would love to be an actor one day, I would also like to do some modeling."
Acting has been in Serge's mind since he was little. He took a class at Arizona State once, and without time to study, he completely improvised a scene and received glowing reviews from his teacher.
Serge can see himself as a Hollywood villain.
"You know, look mean, not really say too much," Serge says.
Serge talks about Denzel Washington like his teammates would talk about Shaquille O'Neal. It's someone he would love to have as a peer, if this basketball thing doesn't work out.
"You've got to have a lot of options. If one of them doesn't work right, you go to the next one. If that one doesn't work, you go to the next one."
"You can throw me anywhere in the world, I'll be fine," Serge says.
"I'll survive. It's nothing, I'll never complain."
