Lampe Challenge

About

www.lampechallenge.se
Twitter: @LampeChallenge
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Story

Maciej Lampe is the first basketball player from Sweden who have played in the NBA. Lampe was Born in Lodz, Poland, but he emigrated with his family from Poland to Stockholm, Sweden when he was six.
He began play basketball in Stockholms Polisen IF youth teams when he was 9 years old and was a member in the club for more than 5 years.

During his first years playing basketball he also practiced ice hockey and soccer. And it was not at all certain that basketball was the sport he was going to focus at.

"You could notice early that Micke was a talent above the usual. His height in combination with a rare feeling for the ball. But talent can only get you that far - and Micke had something more. Maciej was always the player that practiced the hardest and the most focused. And he always had his ball with him, wherever he went. Just to practice a little more" says his coach from the early years, Joakim Samuelsson.

Playing for Stockholms Polisen boys-85 he got the award to be the best player in his age (Boys-85) in the Nordic championships two years in a row.

At the age of 15 he moved to Spain to play professional basketball in Real Madrid (Spain) and he became the youngest player in Real Madrid history that played in Euroleauge.

Selected by New York Knicks in the second round (30th overall) of the 2003 NBA Draft as an early entry candidate. Maciej got traded to the Phoenix Suns in January 2004 and became the youngest player in Suns history to appear in a regular season game.
One year later he got traded for the second time in his NBA career, this time to New Orleans Hornets. At the end of his third year in the NBA he represented Houston Rockets which has become Maciejs fourth NBA club.

Season 2006/2007 Maciej returned to Europe and played three years in the Russian top club BC Khimki. With Khimki he won the Russian cup and Maciej got the MVP award in the final. In 2009 he helped Khimki to reach the Eurocup final.

Maciej, who has both swedish and polish nationality, played Eurobasket in Poland 2009 were he represented the polish nationalteam.

In july 2009 Lampe signed with the Israeli super league club Maccabi Tel Aviv. He averaged 8 points and 3.8 rebounds in eight Euroleague games with Maccabi.

In January 2010 Maciej returned to Russia and club Unics Kazan were he did great success.
He became MVP in the Russian league 2011 (stats: 18.5 points, 7,5 rebounds) and also won Eurocup (Stats: 15,6 points, 8,5 rebounds) the same season with Unics. Maciej get named to the Eurocup All-first team.

Maciej went back to Spain, playing for Caja Laboral and FC Barcelona.

After several years playing in China Maciej will play in Bahrain 2020