Angolan basketball has been crying out for a new wave of talent to replace the ageing golden generation and Aginaldo Neto, the guard who has been allocated to Petro de Luanda for this season's Basketball Africa League, is the most promising sign yet of supply rising through the ranks to meet demand.
Neto, who told ESPN he has drawn a college offer from Nebraska and interest from San Diego, was born on April 29, 2006. By then, Carlos Morais, the former Toronto Raptors player who will be his teammate for this year's BAL, had already won an AfroBasket gold medal with the Angola national team.
While Morais has spent the bulk of his career with Petro, Neto came up through the ranks of their fierce rivals, Primeiro de Agosto.
"I first found the sport when I was nine years old in Angola. I found an open game. I saw a dunk. I was playing soccer [and] I took my shoes off and said: 'That (basketball) is what I want to do,'" Neto told ESPN.
"I passed through Primeiro de Agosto. I played against Petro many times - finals, championships, semi-finals."
When 6-foot-4 guard Morais began playing basketball, he was told he was in the wrong sport because he was too short. Neto, who is 6-foot-2, encountered similar opposition.
"They say the same thing, but it's always heart over height," Neto said of his doubters. "When you are short, you've got to show them the hard work that you've been putting in and that you are a great player.
"If you are short, you've got to play hard on defense, you've got to be a great teammate and you've got to do many things out of the court, because when you are short, you've got to be an example. You've got to play hard every single game."
Basketball was initially a hobby for the young Neto, but he soon realized it could be much more than that.
"I realized that in 2019, when I won my national championship in Angola. When I won the Junior NBA too, I saw some players [and] some scouts. That's when I realized that basketball is a bigger thing - that it's a business, because everywhere we go, we are taking care of business," he said.
The Angolan government used basketball to build a sense of national pride after the country was torn apart by civil war from 1975 to 2002. Although football remains the main sport and Angola have struggled over the last decade to replicate their basketball success from the one prior, Neto said that even his generation loves to hoop.
He added: "Basketball is a big thing in Angola. When you go to Angola, you find open courts, rims, people playing - especially where I live, in my hood. There's a lot of open courts - I can say maybe 20 or something.
"Every block you go, you find two courts, so basketball is a big thing in Angola. I think we are going to have a great generation coming to put our country on the next level."
Neto has played three games for the senior national team and was called up to Basketball Without Borders (BWB) Global in Indianapolis as part of NBA All-Star 2024, attaining recognition of his status as one of the brightest prospects in his age group.
Petro will tip off the tournament against FUS Rabat in Pretoria on March 9 and Neto will be out to prove that despite not boasting the height of NBA Africa Academy peers Khaman Maluach and Ulrich Chomche, he has the Angolan skill and spirit to make up for it.