On Sunday, journeyman Charles Bassey made his Golden State Warriors debut in a 117-116 loss to the Houston Rockets at home. He signed with the Warriors, his fourth team this season, on April 5, after finishing a 10-day contract with the Boston Celtics. His performance with the organisation, particularly with the Santa Cruz Warriors, has piqued fans’ interest.
Bassey’s journey to professional basketball is one of the sport’s most compelling origin stories, beginning in a two-bedroom home in Lagos, Nigeria, where he helped his family sell fried chicken on the side of the road and ending on the hardwood of the NBA. The 6-foot-10 centre, who began playing basketball at the age of 13, quickly rose to become one of Western Kentucky’s most dominant big men before being selected in the second round of the 2021 NBA Draft by the Philadelphia 76ers.
Charles Bassey, No. 28, Golden State Warriors
@NBAonNBC pic.twitter.com/2QI2d9gtAH
— Golden State Warriors (@warriors) April 6, 2026
Behind that journey is a family whose sacrifices and quiet encouragement shaped every step of it. Let’s take a brief look at his family origin:
Who Is Charles Bassey’s Father, Akpan Ebong Bassey?
Charles Bassey’s father is Akpan Ebong Bassey, a Nigerian man who raised his family in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city. While specific details about his professional background have not been made public, what is documented is the environment he and his wife, Grace, created for their children. The family of five shared a modest two-bedroom home in Lagos, with Charles’s parents in one room, and he and his two sisters in the other.
The family ran a small fried chicken stand on the side of a busy road in Lagos. This was a business that put food on the table, and as it turned out, it changed the course of Nigerian basketball history. It was at that roadside stand that Nigerian youth coach Oladele Awonuga first spotted him and asked if he played basketball. Charles Bassey had not. And that encounter, at a family business Akpan helped sustain, was the beginning of everything.
Shortly after Charles arrived in the United States at the age of 14 to pursue his basketball career, his mother, Grace, passed away. He considered returning to Nigeria; however, his father encouraged him to stay, citing financial reasons.
Who Is Charles Bassey’s Mother?
Charles Bassey’s mother was Grace Ebong Bassey. She was a Nigerian woman who raised her family in Lagos alongside her husband, Akpan. She was the mother of three children, Charles and his two sisters, Angela and Grace, the younger of whom shares her mother’s name.
In a 2021 interview with Basketball News, the former Western Kentucky star described the home directly: “I grew up in a small, two-bedroom home with my mother and father in one room and my two sisters and I sharing the other room. It was a tough environment and a struggle growing up, as we really had to fend for ourselves, but I wouldn’t change anything about it because it made me the strong-minded man I am today.”
Grace did not live to see her son become an NBA player. She passed away shortly after Charles moved to the United States at age 14. It was a loss that hit the teenager hard enough that he considered abandoning his basketball journey and returning home to Nigeria.
What Is Charles Bassey’s Parents’ Background and Ethnicity?
While Charles Bassey was born and raised in Lagos, his parents, Akpan Ebong Bassey and Grace Ebong Bassey, are associated with the Efik and Ibibio ethnic groups of southeastern Nigeria, particularly Cross River and Akwa Ibom states.
Charles himself has spoken with pride about his Nigerian roots. In multiple interviews, he described Lagos as the foundation of his identity and work ethic. “I’m proudly from Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city,” he told Basketball News in 2021. Growing up in a city where soccer is the dominant sport, played barefoot in the streets, as he did from childhood.
The Giants of Africa camp, founded by Nigerian-born Toronto Raptors executive Masai Ujiri, was a formative touchpoint. It was a reminder that Charles’s path was shaped not just by individual talent but by an entire ecosystem of people invested in the development of African players.
Does Charles Bassey Have Siblings?
Charles Bassey has two sisters, Angela Bassey and Grace Bassey. The three children shared the smaller of the two bedrooms in the family’s Lagos home, and Charles has described that shared upbringing as a formative part of who he became. He is the only son and the only child who pursued a career in professional sports.
Neither Angela nor Grace has a documented profile in professional athletics. Beyond their names and their connection to the family home in Lagos, details about Charles’s sisters have not been made public. Charles has not spoken extensively about his siblings in public interviews, and this is consistent with his general approach of keeping family matters largely private outside of what directly relates to his basketball journey.
He carried both of his sisters’ presence with him when he left Lagos at 14. Leaving them behind, along with his father, was, by his own account, one of the hardest parts of making the move to the United States. “Leaving home was very tough for me because I was essentially leaving my parents and the rest of my family behind at the time,” he told Basketball News, “but it was something I knew I had to do in order to grow and achieve my dreams. My family was very supportive and pushed me to go so that I could have a better life.”
How Did Charles Bassey’s Father Influence His Basketball Career?
Akpan Ebong Bassey’s influence on his son’s basketball career is not the story of a father who coached him through drills or navigated the recruiting process. The Bassey family’s chicken stand on the side of a Lagos road was the backdrop for the moment a youth basketball coach noticed him and his dad’s role in sustaining that family business, and the life that surrounded it, created the conditions for that discovery.
When Grace Bassey died shortly after Charles arrived in the States, he was grieving, alone in a foreign country, and seriously considering going home. His father told him to stay, and every subsequent achievement, the TAPPS title at St. Anthony, the Conference USA records at Western Kentucky, the NBA Draft call, can be traced back to his father’s pragmatic counsel in a moment of grief.
Charles has reflected on the environment his parents built as the foundation of his mental toughness. In his own words: “It was a tough environment and a struggle growing up, as we really had to fend for ourselves, but I wouldn’t change anything about it because it made me the strong-minded man I am today. It taught me what hard work was all about and to always keep pushing.”
