Bismack Biyombo is playing for so much more than an NBA championship

When Bismack Biyombo returned to the NBA and signed with the Phoenix Suns, he repeatedly mentioned that he had been waiting for the perfect situation because he wanted to “play for something more.”

It was easy to assume he meant playing for a championship. After all, Biyombo is a 29-year-old veteran who’d only been to the playoffs twice in his 10-year career, and when he took some time away from basketball to process the death of his father, Francois, his decision to join the No. 1 team in the league made sense. The Suns had a great basketball culture, they owned the NBA’s best record, and they had legitimate title aspirations. In short, he could play for “something more.”

Little did we know that Bismack Biyombo’s “something more” extended well beyond the confines of the court.

On Friday, the Suns center announced through his foundation’s YouTube channel that he will be donating his entire $1.4 million salary for this season to building a hospital back home in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in his father’s name. In an instant, a decision that Biyombo made back in November about what he truly wanted to play for became clear.

“What a sacrifice, to take your salary and just give it to people so that they can have a better life, better health, better future — and those people may never even know where that money came from,” coach Monty Williams said. “You just think about his heart, what he’s done, and it reminds me of other players that I’ve heard from Africa that have done that, where they build not just homes, but hospitals and schools so that other people can have a better life. I just thought it was an amazing gesture, and that just says a lot about who Biz is.”

“It doesn’t surprise me,” Landry Shamet agreed. “He’s just a good dude. Has a great perspective on everything, understands what’s going on, knows how to do his job, be a pro within these walls, but then obviously has a lot he’s doing outside of basketball and doing it really well. A lot of good things for a lot of people beyond the scope of basketball. So it doesn’t surprise me. You know when you talk to him how big of a heart he has and how good of a person he is. So I think that’s why he fits here, why we like him, why he’s just one of us.”

In August 2021, Biyombo’s father passed away from a COVID-related illness. He spent 45 days with Francois, evacuating him from his homeland back in the DR Congo to Europe in order to seek out better treatment.

The experience left him wanting to do more to help those who weren’t as fortunate.

“God has blessed me so much, to be surrounded by amazing people, and I was fortunate enough to be in a situation and conditions where I could actually evacuate him and put him on a medical plan, give him the best care possible,” Biyombo said. “But when I first got home, going to those hospitals back home, my question was always, ‘How about these people that cannot take their families out?’

“I have the capability of doing that, and I could sit here and complain about it and always ask myself these questions, but the reality of it is, even if my dad would have made it, I think we would have found ways to dive into this, because I experienced it firsthand, and I really feel for these people. You go there and then they’re fighting for their lives.”

Building a hospital represents Biyombo’s desire to do what he can to help his people after what he witnessed back home in the DRC during one of the toughest times of his life, but it’s also rooted in beliefs deeply embedded in him by his father.

Growing up, Biyombo said his family of nine — his mother, father and six other siblings — had three rooms between them. The boys’ room had three of them to a bed, and there were times his family didn’t have enough food.

And yet his father, ever the welcoming presence, would always invite people over to offer what they could.

“I was always asking my dad, like, ‘We don’t have enough, but you’re still welcoming more people. It just don’t make sense,'” Biyombo said. “But he was like, ‘You cannot also abandon people. Whatever we have, we have to share with others.'”

That generosity and selflessness extended to helping his son realize his basketball dreams.

“My dad was my first believer and he spend his own money to allow me to perhaps follow my dreams and paid money out of his own pocket because he just believed that I could make it,” Biyombo said. “I had a chance, he gave me a chance to make it in life.”

Because of all this, the idea of sharing what he had became second nature to Biyombo by the time he entered the league. At the age of 19, he started the Bismack Biyombo Foundation, following a 7-59 campaign with the Charlotte Bobcats that was one of the worst individual seasons in NBA history.

After working so hard to get to the league and being drafted seventh overall, that dismal rookie year kept him up at night. He decided a trip back home to see his family would help get his mind right and maybe even rest his mind after struggling to fall asleep for weeks. That idea turned into hosting a basketball camp in the DRC. He called his equipment manager, asking for whatever shoes he could bring back home, and then told his brothers to gather up 20-25 kids.

Biyombo didn’t receive his first pair of new basketball shoes until he was 16 years old, so when he saw those kids receive new shoes, T-shirts and shorts, something clicked.

“I give some of them the shoes, they were looking at them going to hide, like they’re gonna use it for the school year and all that,” he recalled. “I just had so much joy watching them go through the whole process. And then after that, I went home, talked to my parents, my mom and dad, and then I went to my hotel…slept like a baby, man. Struggling sleeping for two weeks, slept like a baby.”

His parents urged him to look into it, telling their son that maybe it was a sign he had been put in his position for a reason. The foundation grew from there, supporting 100 kids with Jordan brand apparel and eventually even scholarships.

“At the time, I didn’t want to be able to get in front of cameras one day [when] I retire and say, ‘I was the only one that came from that place and that city,'” Biyombo explained. “We wanted to produce as many Bismacks as we can, whether it was in the medical field, whether it was in sports, whatever that is, just finding ways to create opportunities.”

The foundation and his father’s positive influence have long been a part of Bismack Biyombo’s NBA journey. When he returned to the league with the Suns, he chose the No. 18 for his jersey because his father was born on June 18. When he played in his first game back, he said the biggest adjustment wasn’t learning his new team’s plays or getting his conditioning back, but rather, realizing he wouldn’t be getting his customary pregame text from his father.

And when this new hospital is built, it will proudly bear his father’s name on it, as Biyombo originally planned when he first told his agent that he would only return to the NBA if he could donate his entire salary to making this vision a reality.

“I’ve always said the goal in life is never to live forever, but to leave something that will live forever,” Biyombo said. “I wanted and I had a desire to build him something that, one, will have his name, and, two, hopefully it goes for generations and that will service people and continue to service people. Hopefully, we can save as many lives as we can. I know he couldn’t be here to witness that, but I’m sure he’s happy on the other side that I get to do something for him.”

No one can do it alone, of course. When his father first got sick, Dikembe Mutombo — who Biyombo calls “his brother” — was one of the first people he reached out to for doctor recommendations. When he was sick during a global pandemic, his father still helped the Bismack Biyombo Foundation donate containers with 10,000 masks and 780 hazmat suits to the DRC.

So when it came time to give back after his father’s passing, Biyombo had plenty of good examples to look to, which he hopes will inspire the future generation to be even better.

“My dad and I would always go back and forth, like, ‘We are doers,'” he said. “‘We take actions rather than sit here and complain, and we educate the next generation. We have to build a platform so that hopefully a decade from now, we don’t have to complain so much about the things we can fix and information we’re gonna pass on to the next generation.’ So I think this is also an action that will hopefully start something.”

Despite being worth over $24 trillion because of its abundant natural resources, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a poor country, and it’s one with almost 90 million people. That means there’s one doctor for about every 10,000 people. Biyombo said the goal isn’t just to build a hospital, but to find a way to produce more doctors in his homeland.

Fortunately, Biyombo has been overwhelmed with the number of former teammates and friends reaching out to pledge their support. The initial plan was to not even announce it publicly, but then it was brought to his attention: “What’s the point of doing something generous if you cannot give people at least an opportunity to be part of it?”

While Biyombo wouldn’t identify any donors specifically because he didn’t know how comfortable they’d be with being named publicly, the extra aid from those around him means everything to the Suns big man.

“It gives me hope for the world we live in,” he said. “There’s so much that goes on around the world that sometimes we tend to forget that there is also so many good people with kind hearts that wanna leave this place a better place than we found it. So I cherish this moment, because we’re all somehow connected. And in this journey of life that we’re on, we only have so much time here on Earth. I think, as everybody is trying to play their [role], whether it’s a big or small role in this journey, I think at the end of our days, we’ll be able to look back and say we have achieved so much more than we expected.”

Monty Williams spoke about Bismack Biyombo’s decision to donate his entire salary to building a hospital back home in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the character of his guys in general: pic.twitter.com/wZ7B4hvDAv

— Gerald Bourguet (@GeraldBourguet) March 12, 2022

The support of the Suns organization has helped make all this possible, and Biyombo frequently calls his situation in Phoenix a “blessing,” both on and off the court. During the All-Star break, he texted coach Monty Williams to let him know how grateful he was for the way they welcomed him with open arms.

When Biyombo walks into the gym, he said feels like he’s been there for a lot longer than three months. The Suns have allowed him to feel joy on the basketball court again, which he wasn’t sure he’d feel again after his father passed. Now he gets the opportunity to play for a title, but even if Phoenix falls short of its goal, Biyombo believes saving even one life with this new hospital will have made the decision to return to the NBA worth it.

“It’s not just the desire to go for a championship, but also the desire to save lives,” he said. “At the end of this season, I really want to be able to look back and say, ‘I dedicated this season to my dad, and we went for a championship.’ God willing, we’ll win a championship too. I will have tears, but it’s not going to be tears of sadness; it’ll be tears of joy, because God has given me the opportunity to do something for others, and my dad will be able to cherish this on the other side.”