"I was talking to one of my friends, Ishmael Smith, this summer," Aminu recalled. "He was like ‘Man, we’ve been in the league five years!’ and it was just like, you don’t understand, that’s an accomplishment unto itself sometimes. You might think to yourself ‘Man, my career. First day I was supposed to get 30, I was supposed to be a Hall of Famer,’ you know what I mean? That’s how I envisioned my career going."