Ike Azotam

Ikechukwu "Ike" Azotam (born January 14, 1991) is a Nigerian-American former professional basketball player who is the head video coordinator and a player development coach for the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Quinnipiac Bobcats for four seasons and earned all-conference recognition on three occasions. Azotam attended the John D. O'Bryant School of Mathematics & Science and Marianapolis Preparatory School for high school and was named New England All-Star in his final two seasons. He played as a power forward.

Early life Azotam was born on January 14, 1991, in Boston, Massachusetts, as the youngest of four children of Ada and Bennet Azotam. He has two brothers, Dozie and Uchenna, and a sister, Adaorah. Azotam's parents both moved from Nigeria to the United States at about 20 years old for a better life. Dozie played American football for the Georgetown Hoyas and is a member of the school's African-American Advisory Board (AAAB). Unchenna and Adaorah attended Georgetown as well, leading Ike to consider joining the same school. His mother said, "You would have to ask him to take out the trash, clean the dishes and clean his room, but you never had to ask him to play basketball." Ike himself has a height of 6 ft 7 in (2.01 m) and stood 6 ft 6 (1.98 m) as a high school senior. By the end of his sophomore season, he was averaging 16.5 points and 9.5 rebounds per game. Later that year, on February 21, John O'Bryant was defeated by Madison Park Technical Vocational High School at the Boston City League championship game despite having Azotam put up a double-double of 16 points and 20 rebounds. Following his third season at O'Bryant, after which they finished 18–6, Azotam earned New England All-Star and Massachusetts All-Scholastic recognition. He made his debut on October 5 against Azpeitia, scoring 22 points and adding 7 rebounds and 2 steals. In his next game, on October 11, Azotam recorded his first double-double, with 19 points and 13 rebounds vs Canarias Basketball Academy. He followed up by notching a season-high 24 points on Xuventude Baloncesto. Azotam had another notable performance on November 30, when he scored 19 points and grabbed 10 rebounds against FC Barcelona Bàsquet B. Azotam led Marín in points, rebounds, field goal percentage and minutes through February 17, 2015, when he was named LEB Plata Player of the Week. By the end of the season, he was averaging 13.9 points and 6.6 rebounds and making over 55% of his shots.

On October 29, 2015, Azotam inked with the Island Storm of the National Basketball League of Canada (NBL). He claimed that he wanted to play with the team because the Storm were historically successful in the NBL Canada.

Azotam returned to Spain in December 2015, after signing with Leyma Básquet Coruña of the LEB Oro. Doctors detected an irregular heartbeat during his physical with the team and failed to clear him to play.

On August 22, 2023, Azotam was sued by the New York Knicks in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The Knicks state that Ikechukwu Azotam, who worked for the Knicks from 2020 to 2023, sent the Raptors thousands of confidential files—including play frequency reports, a prep book for the 2022-23 season, video scouting files, opposition research and more—after the team began recruiting him to join their organization in summer 2023. The lawsuit alleged that Azotam "illegally shared 3,358 video files" and that "the stolen files were accessed over 2,000 times by the Raptors." The files were accessed from a Google email account that Azotam maintained.