Charlotte Hornets center Bismack Biyombo can't find a moment alone in his own home these day.
He finds that wonderful.
He had six siblings scattered around the United States at various schools, and when the pandemic struck, he brought them all to Charlotte to live together.
"Really, the first time I've spent a straight six weeks with my family _ getting to see them every single day," said Biyombo, whose three brothers and three sisters range in age from 25 to 15.
Biyombo, 27, is in his ninth NBA season. He left his home in the Democratic Republic of the Congo at 17 to start playing professionally in Spain and now pays for his siblings to be educated in the United States.
Their education these days is different than what he grew up with. Biyombo tells family stories the youngest ones siblings never heard: How he and his brothers sometimes walked to school without shoes. How the family sometimes missed meals for a lack of food. Uncles and cousins occasionally filled his parents' home because they had nowhere else to sleep.
"I want them growing up appreciating how much they have," Biyombo said in an interview with the Observer on Friday.
Biyombo, with NBA earnings of more than $75 million, stresses charity and sharing hope. As part of his foundation's effort to improve medical care in the Congo, he recently shipped $1 million in supplies to his native country. Largely protective gear for doctors and nurses, including Hazardous Material suits equipped with oxygen tanks. But also incubators for the newborn and wheelchairs for the infirm.
He's looking to help head off a possible COVID-19 outbreak in an area that once was devastated by Ebola. Biyombo said it's unrealistic, in the way many must live in the Congo, to invoke a stay-at-home order to limit infection spread.
"A lot of people live there (on day-to-day subsistence income). It's hard for me to send a video motivating people to stay at home," Biyombo said.
