At a time when professional sports owners and players fight over millions of dollars, one NBA player is focused on helping others. Bismack Biyombo is pledging to donate his entire $1.3 million salary this year to create a hospital in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Biyombo, 29, said in a video released by his Bismack Biyombo Foundation that the project will honor his late father, François Biyombo, who died last August, “Faithwire” reported.
The Phoenix Suns player, who is a Christian, told his agent he wanted to come to an agreement to play in the NBA this year that would enable him to advance a positive cause, especially as he initially paused playing basketball and re-evaluated his life and career in the wake of his dad’s death.
“While I was trying to figure out how to find something that would motivate me this year, I remember one day, I picked up the phone and called my agent,” he said. “And said the only way I would do it this year was if we find a situation — one, that I fit in, and two, that I would play for something.”
Biyombo reflected on his father’s health struggles before his death and his ability, because of his own resources, to take his dad into Europe to seek better treatment.
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“I wanted to make this year about my dad, because my dad spent most of his life making his life about me, my brothers and sisters, and serving people,” he said. “What I told my agent was my salary for this year would be going for the construction of a hospital back home to give hope to the hopeless.”
Biyombo plans to build the hospital in his father’s honor.
“This is the best way I think that this year will be meaningful to me,” he said. “It’s not just the desire to go for a championship but also the desire to save lives. And at the end of this season, I really want to be able to look back and say, ‘I dedicated this season to my dad.’”
–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice