 Photo Courtesy Of Mani Messy
Mani Messy, a Los Altos Hills resident, has played three years of pro basketball in Europe. He averaged nearly 20 points per game playing for Boncourt of Switzerland last season. Mani Messy’s decision not to return to Europe this summer to play professional basketball was not an easy one. The Los Altos Hills resident is in his prime at 26 and coming off his best season.
But Messy doesn’t doubt he made the right choice.
“I want to be around my family more,” he said. “It’s not fair to my 2 1/2-year-old son to not be around for nine months.”
For Messy, knowing that his son Kobe and wife Iva won’t have to miss him trumps how much he will miss playing pro ball.
“It’s tough – basketball is something I really love,” Messy said. “But this is where I want to be – and I’m really not leaving basketball.”
Instead of playing basketball for a living, Messy is teaching it. The Seton Hall University graduate recently founded Above and Beyond Basketball and trains young players.
“My success now is how many people I touch or bless,” he said.
Until he finds gym space for his basketball academy, Messy is training his athletes on a halfcourt at the home of one of his clients. He is working one-on-one with players as young as 8, sharing with them what he learned playing at Seton Hall and for pro teams in Germany, Finland and Switzerland.
“I’m trying to get kids more involved in improving their game,” Messy said. “Here, kids will spend five or six hours a day playing the game; over (in Europe), they spend five or six hours working on fundamentals and shaping their skills. I want to combine both (approaches) – that’s the idea.”
Having competed in the top pro league in each of the three countries, Messy is convinced Europeans play the right way. The emphasis is on players being multidimensional.
“Over there it’s more of a finesse game and here it’s more of a physical game. There, you can play (positions) one through five and the tallest players on the court are shooting 3s. Here, you don’t see Shaq shooting 3s,” Messy said. “(In Europe), they teach you to play multiple positions. That’s the approach I’m taking – not making a player a two or a three, but turning him into a basketball player.”
The 6-foot-7, 220-pound Messy said his versatility helped him thrive in Europe after four years as a reserve for Seton Hall. The combo forward could post up smaller defenders or get by bigger ones playing on the perimeter.
Messy described his first season, in which he played for BBC-Bayreuth in Germany, as “a learning year.” Yet he averaged 10 points per game coming off the bench. He was a starter his second season, averaging 18 points for Parvoon Tarmo in Finland. Last season, Messy scored nearly 20 points a game for Boncourt in Switzerland.
“Every year I made progress, as far as production,” he said. “That came with teams giving me more responsibility.”
His German team “probably had the most talent, but there was no chemistry,” Messy said. “Everyone on the team thought they could be the main guy, instead of taking a role that makes the team better.” BBC-Bayreuth missed the playoffs.
The team he played for in Switzerland this year had chemistry, and – not surprisingly – the most success, according to Messy. Boncourt reached the second round of the playoffs, losing to the eventual league champion.
“We meshed together well,” Messy said. “The guys got together and said, ‘Let’s play basketball the way it’s supposed to be played.’ The second half of the season we went 10-1 and beat teams left and right.”
Messy bounced from team to team for a reason – he signed only one-year deals to have flexibility.
“I didn’t want to be locked in, in case a better opportunity came around,” he said.
Messy said Switzerland was his favorite stop because the Swiss speak French, which he grew up speaking. Born in Cameroon, Messy moved to Canada with his family at age 5. He dabbled in several sports growing up in Gloucester (near Ottawa, Ontario), including soccer and hockey. But for Messy, nothing beat basketball.
He traveled to Connecticut for a tournament during his sophomore year of high school and caught the attention of several prep schools. Messy chose St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, N.J., where he played his junior and senior years.
“It was a tremendous opportunity because basketball is very limited in Canada,” Messy said. “I followed my love for basketball.”
He performed well enough at St. Benedict’s to receive scholarship offers from scores of schools. He chose Seton Hall because, “I was in New Jersey and it only made sense to stay there.”
Although Messy’s college career didn’t go as well as he had hoped, he cherished the chance to play in the Big East Conference.
“There were ups and downs there,” he said, “but I got to play with and against a lot of great players.”
Seton Hall twice made the NCAA Tournament during Messy’s time there, upsetting Arizona in the first round his freshman year. Messy said that was the highlight of his college career.
Messy’s off-the-court highlight was meeting his future wife at Seton Hall. Iva Messy (nee Trifunovic) grew up in Los Altos Hills and played competitive tennis.
An agent contacted Messy about playing basketball in Europe after he graduated with a degree in public relations.
“One thing led to another, and pretty soon I was playing in Germany,” Messy said. “It worked out pretty well.”
But he has no regrets about staying stateside this year.
“My family is my priority,” Messy said. “It was tough being away from my little son – he’s such a joy to be around.”
For more information about Above and Beyond Basketball, visit www.aboveandbeyondbasketball.com.
Contact Pete Borello at
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