‘So many people told me no’: Georges Niang’s long journey from ‘The Barn’ to the Sixers

There’s a gym in northern Massachusetts that Georges Niang considers his second home.

The building features a burgundy barn attached to a more modern white building. Officially, it’s the Joseph N. Hermann Youth Center in North Andover, Mass. Locally, it’s known as “The Barn.”

The small gym is just a short drive south of Niang’s hometown of Methuen, Mass. The North Andover Knights logo adorns the far wall and a matching red-and-black colorway outfits the hardwood floor. One sideline has two rows of creaky team benches and the other has cushioned chairs commonly reserved for visiting college coaches.

“There were just so many hours spent there,” Niang said. “From the fourth grade, shoot, even until today. It’s a place that has seen the evolution of Georges.”

“He talks pretty affectionately about this gym; it’s pretty much his home gym in a lot of ways,” said Rick Gorman, executive director of the youth center and Niang’s longtime mentor. “There were New Year’s Eves where some kids were out partying and we were in here at 11 o’clock working on his game because that’s what he loved to do.”

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Even when basketball took him away from home for high school, college and the NBA, Niang returned to The Barn as a place of refuge. He played five seasons at the Tilton School in New Hampshire and four at Iowa State. The Indiana Pacers drafted Niang 50th overall in 2016, after which he spent the following year with the G League’s Santa Cruz Warriors and played well enough to land a spot on the Utah Jazz roster in 2018.

Now he’s eyeing his second season with the Sixers and seventh in the NBA. Niang signed a two-year, $6.7 million contract with the Sixers last August. The 6-foot-7, 230-pound forward — dubbed “The Minivan” — who was once told he was “too fat” and “unathletic” found his niche as a career 40% three-point shooter and high-IQ defender.

Like his Twitter bio says, Niang didn’t take the elevator to success. He took the stairs.

“Rick would end every practice with a quote,” Niang said. “That one stuck with me because it’s been a hard [expletive] journey for me to get where I’m at today. There were so many people that told me no. There were so many people that said I wasn’t good enough. There were so many times that people picked other people over me. I just had to accept that, swallow my pride and keep pushing.”

Niang and his best friend, Gorman’s son, Michael, met at soccer practice. They were inseparable. There were 12-hour days spent playing basketball and weekends passed painting their faces and watching football.

Gorman coached Michael and Niang in elementary school before following them to Methuen’s middle school travel team and forming the New England Storm AAU program.

“He was kind of built like a baby elephant back then,” Gorman said of Niang. “He was big and he wasn’t in control of his body. He’d fall down on the ground a lot but you see how his body changed and how he developed physically.”

Growing up, Niang’s diet consisted of a mixture of chicken cutlets, pizza, steak bombs (New England’s version of a cheesesteak), and calzones topped off with gelato or Italian ice for dessert. “I was working out all the time, which probably saved me, but I was not eating healthy,” Niang said. “I probably had enough sugar in my body at a young age to last me a lifetime.”

As a 6-foot fifth-grader, Niang overpowered competition with his back to the basket. But Gorman wasn’t sure that approach was sustainable. Niang’s father, Sidy, who was born in Dakar, Senegal, and worked for the military in Virginia Beach, Va., is just under 6-foot. His mother, Alison, wasn’t particularly tall, either. It was his uncle Ed Champy who shared the height gene.

“My thing is, unless you’re 7 feet tall right now,” Gorman said, with a thick Boston accent, “you’re a freaking guahd.”

With the help of shooting coach Jeff Nelson, who now serves as an advance scout for the Lakers, Niang slowly morphed into a more consistent shooter. First came establishing a face-up game, then operating in the midrange before stepping back to the three-point line.

“Rick kind of made me obsessed, whether it was making like 100 shots right when I got home from school or 100 shots after I ate dinner or 100 shots before dinner,” Niang said. “All of it added up and I put that in my game for my seventh- and eighth-grade year.”

Some of the top talent played for Methuen’s travel team. Niang was one of four future college basketball players on the team, including Michael, who played four years at Anna Maria College. Jaycob Morales attended Wheaton College and Jimmy Zenevitch chose Assumption University.

High school was more of the same. But Niang and his family chose to travel an hour north to Tilton in New Hampshire for its rigorous academics and smaller class sizes.

It just so happened the Rams were becoming a basketball powerhouse under Marcus O’Neil with future pros Nerlens Noel, Wayne Selden, Dominique Bull, Alex Oriakhi, and Goodluck Okonoboh.

Niang graduated as a three-year starter and two-year captain , with a school-record 2,372 points.

Gorman presuaded Niang to leave the New England Storm as a sophomore to play for Leo Papile and the Boston Amateur Basketball Club. Papile’s resumé includes 40-plus years of experience in Division I, NBA, CBA, and USA basketball.

Gorman has long viewed Niang as his second son and third child (his second is his daughter Lyndsey), and didn’t want to slow him down or impede his basketball journey.

“I told him, ‘BABC travels the country and Leo Papile knows every college coach in the world; you need to do this,’” Gorman said. “I think when Georges got really, really good and I knew he was really good, I needed to step aside.”

BABC took Niang on a 17-day cross-country trip for Nike’s Peach Jam in 2011. ESPN recruiting analysts called the team — which had some overlap with Tilton’s roster — one of the “toughest and best defensive teams in the EYBL,” losing only one regular-season and one pool-play game that summer.

After winning the 17U Peach Jam championship, Niang spent his first night back in Methuen at Michael’s house. Rick figured he’d sleep in after touring the country for more than two weeks.

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Early the next morning, Gorman pulled out of the driveway. In the rearview mirror, he saw Niang chasing his car down the street. He couldn’t bear to miss a workout.

“I think where that drive comes from is the fact that he had a dream. It was Kobe Bryant-esque,” Gorman said. “It was the work ethic that nothing’s ever given — always earned, never given. And the other thing is the haters. He never forgot the people that hated on his game.”

Niang’s college decision was shaped by AAU programs knocking his game and scouts criticizing his body. He wanted a program that accepted him and a place with a real appreciation for college basketball. Alison also went behind her son’s back, giving then-coach Fred Hoiberg a cheat sheet on how to best recruit him.

The four-star forward was sold after visiting the Ames, Iowa, campus.

He started 23 games as a freshman and averaged 12.1 points and 4.6 rebounds. That earned him a spot on the Big 12 all-rookie team. After that season, Papile saw something more auspicious in Niang that surprised even Gorman, who considers himself Niang’s biggest advocate.

“Leo Papile said to me, ‘He’s going to be a 10-year pro,’” Gorman said. “I said, ‘Wow, that’s a bold statement. Ten years in the league? Not everybody plays 10 years in the league?’ … He’s more than halfway to 10 years now and I’m convinced he definitely will.”

Papile was right. Niang was Iowa State’s second all-time leading scorer with 2,228 points when he graduated in 2016. The “King of Ames,” as Gorman calls him, is now on the verge of his seventh NBA season and with a Sixers team that harbors hopes of contending in the East.

Gorman was there for the entire process. He has been Niang’s coach, trainer, and mentor since he first picked up a ball, but he’s strictly a father figure now. He still won’t let the multimillionaire pay for breakfast, he gets a call before Niang signs a new deal, and he proudly displays his former pupil’s accomplishments.

Right above the double doors inside the gym at The Barn are three framed jerseys. The first one raised was Niang’s signed No. 31 Utah Jazz jersey. Walk upstairs to Rick’s office and there’s a framed No. 32 jersey from the Indiana Pacers. Hanging on the opposite door handle is his No. 20 Sixers jersey.

“I look at it [when I’m home], but I don’t ever sit in awe,” Niang said. “This is what I love doing. I’m chasing my passion every day. I don’t want this to end. I want to continue to be obsessed and paranoid with my craft.”