{"id":103729,"date":"2025-06-17T14:59:25","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T14:59:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/all-news\/patriots-sign-former-rivers-hoopers-star-before-playoffs"},"modified":"2025-06-17T15:14:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T15:14:41","slug":"patriots-sign-former-rivers-hoopers-star-before-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/patriots-sign-former-rivers-hoopers-star-before-playoffs","title":{"rendered":"Patriots Sign Former Rivers Hoopers Star Before Playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Rwanda. <\/strong><\/span>Patriots have signed experienced American forward Raphiael Putney as club reinforces before the Rwanda Basketball League (RBL) playoffs start on June 20.<\/p>\n<p>Putney, 35, most recently played for Nigeria\u2019s Rivers Hoopers during the fifth season of Basketball Africa League (BAL).<\/p>\n<p>Standing at 2.08m, the star forward is expected to arrive in the country Wednesday, June 18, just two days before the playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>Putney has played for a number of teams in various countries including South Africa\u2019s Cape Town Tigers, the US\u2019s UMass Minutemen and Rio Grande Valley Vipers, Saudi Arabia\u2019s Al-Ittihad Jeddah, and more.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Rwanda<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Rwanda. Patriots have signed experienced American forward Raphiael Putney as club reinforces before the Rwanda Basketball League (RBL) playoffs start on June 20. Putney, 35, most recently played for Nigeria\u2019s Rivers Hoopers during the fifth season of Basketball Africa League (BAL). Standing at 2.08m, the star forward is expected to arrive in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":103728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[3503,5681,758,5013],"class_list":["post-103729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-patriots","tag-playoffs","tag-rwanda","tag-rwanda-basketball-league"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Patriots Sign Former Rivers Hoopers Star Before Playoffs - Rwanda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Patriots have signed experienced American forward Raphiael Putney as club reinforces before the Rwanda Basketball League ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/patriots-sign-former-rivers-hoopers-star-before-playoffs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Patriots Sign Former Rivers Hoopers Star Before Playoffs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Patriots have signed experienced American forward Raphiael Putney as club reinforces before the Rwanda Basketball League ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/patriots-sign-former-rivers-hoopers-star-before-playoffs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rwanda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-06-17T14:59:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-06-17T15:14:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2025\/06\/sm_1750160665.754739.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"563\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/patriots-sign-former-rivers-hoopers-star-before-playoffs#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/patriots-sign-former-rivers-hoopers-star-before-playoffs\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Patriots Sign Former Rivers Hoopers Star Before Playoffs\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-06-17T14:59:25+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-06-17T15:14:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/patriots-sign-former-rivers-hoopers-star-before-playoffs\"},\"wordCount\":115,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/patriots-sign-former-rivers-hoopers-star-before-playoffs#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2025\/06\/sm_1750160665.754739.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Patriots\",\"Playoffs\",\"Rwanda\",\"Rwanda Basketball league\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/patriots-sign-former-rivers-hoopers-star-before-playoffs#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/patriots-sign-former-rivers-hoopers-star-before-playoffs\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/patriots-sign-former-rivers-hoopers-star-before-playoffs\",\"name\":\"Patriots Sign Former Rivers Hoopers Star Before Playoffs - 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