An Indian connection to the NBA

February 12, 2012 – The Los Angeles Lakers are playing at Madison Square Garden against a reeling New York Knicks team, struggling to get back to .500. But Knicks fans including me believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel, a godsend in the form of Jeremy Lin.

Lin has been on fire, leading the Knicks to three wins on the trot – the first a 99-92 win over crosstown rivals the New Jersey Nets (at the time), the second against Utah Jazz in which the Knicks played without Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire, and the third against John Wall and the Washington Wizards. But tonight’s game appeared to be the toughest test for Lin, a litmus test of his abilities against the best in the business.

Lin as a New York Knick

Lin swivels and spins past Derek Fisher, contorts his body to evade the long arms of Pau Gasol and has the audacity to shoot a three, notwithstanding an onrushing Metta World Peace. Kobe Bryant who claims that he doesn’t know who Jeremy Lin is, has a taste of “Linsanity”, as Lin torches the Lakers for a career-high 38 points and 7 assists.

In the aftermath of the game I come to realize the effect that Lin has had on the basketball world, not only in the USA but also the rest of the world, especially Asia. Blogs are abuzz with the unheralded Taiwanese-American’s feats on the basketball hardwood. My mind begins fantasizing – “At guard, from India, Ganesh Raaaaaaaam……” and the Knicks announcer’s voice trails off as I come back to my senses, realizing that my NBA dream is over before it had even started.

A year and 10 months later, as I sit down to write this article, no Indian has still made it to the NBA. But not to be disheartened so soon, I realize that things are better off for Indian basketball than it was in February of 2012.

Davis Stern

For starters, there was the visit of NBA commissioner David Stern to India this summer in April where there lay an interesting tidbit for those who believe in fortune-telling – prophesying that India would have a player in the NBA in approximately five years.

Chris Bosh, on the heels of a second consecutive NBA championship, has embraced the Indian soil as a part of the NBA Abroad Program.

Then there was the visit of Ron Harper, Horace Grant and Peja Stojakovic, the flag-bearers of the NBA in India this year as a part of the NBA Jam.

The 7-foot 2-inch Satnam Singh has taken slow but significant strides towards an NBA career, as his association with the IMG Reliance Academy continues.

Sim Bhullar, an Indo-Canadian basketball player, a 7-foot 5-inch behemoth “is poised to become the world’s first prominent men’s basketball player of Indian and Sikh descent” (as per a New York Times article).

Geethu Anna Jose continues to impress for the Indian national team, and has received a multitude of offers from foreign clubs, including the Ringwood Hawks (Australia) with whom she had a three-year stint and the Bangkok Cobras who are coached by Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, father of NBA superstar Kobe Bryant.

Sony Six is telecasting two games every day on TV, which means that every fan is treated to a double header each morning!

The NBA and Reliance Foundation have joined hands to collaborate and take Indian basketball to the next level, by aiming to catch the kids young with a school-based basketball strategy. The Reliance Foundation Jr. NBA programme aims to impart basketball knowledge to 300 coaches and over 100,000 youth as a part of a larger aim of inculcating basketball into the education curriculum.

Swin Cash flanked by Chris Bosh and Dominique Wilkins

As I type these words, Swin Cash, a prominent WNBA star from the Chicago Sky, has just left India after spending three days promoting basketball at the grassroots level in Mumbai as part of the Reliance Foundation Jr. NBA program.

But above all, the most important phenomenon has been a business transaction in the higher ranks of the league. Vivek Ranadive, an Indian businessman, has rescued the Sacramento Kings from relocation, taking over the ownership of the ball club from the Maloof family ensuring that the Kings’ tryst with Sacramento continued for the foreseeable future.

The Kings were embroiled in a relocation saga which gave rise to speculations that the Maloofs were to pledge the ownership of the franchise to a Seattle-based group that included Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. But in stepped Ranadive and his cohorts who questioned the aloofness of the Maloofs and made their pitch to the NBA board, ensuring that the club would remain in Sacramento.

Vivek Ranadive at a press conference

By buying the Kings, Ranadive has not only strengthened the presence of the Kings in the Bay Area with a large diaspora of Indians, but has ensured that basketball in India would get a facelift in the long run, a shot in the arm for Indian basketball.

Ranadive has huge ambitions of making basketball the second-most popular sport in India, after the obvious – cricket. The fact that there are no professional basketball leagues in India do not seem to deter the man as Ranadive claims that basketball is an easy sport, and that it can be played anywhere and taught to anyone.

One major bonus in favour of basketball, according to Ranadive, is that it doesn’t need a huge playing area like cricket or football; a small court would suffice.

A man who landed on streets of USA with less than $100 with him but has since scripted one of Silicon Valley’s remarkable success stories, Ranadive knows the importance of integrating basketball and business for the game to kick off in India. He knows that the NBA must set up its Indian unit, much like NBA China.

The next step would be the creation of a professional league where teams/clubs hire local players and organize tryouts. The next step and the most important would be to enter into partnerships with corporate entities for both monetary and advertisement/popularity purposes.

With respect to the Kings and their Indian connection, Ranadive opted to go desi style on opening night of the 2013 season with the Kings’ dancers decked out in Indian apparel and gyrating to Bollywood numbers. On the titantron, Kings’ players greeted the fans in – you guessed it right – Hindi.

But the biggest surprise of all was reserved for outside the arena where co-owner and NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal was playing cricket, a move that was a hit with the Indian fans.

The Kings launched a Hindi-version of their website and also hosted a viewing party of their opening home game in Mumbai. The move paid off, as 15 more Kings’ games were picked up for broadcasting. The Kings have also nursed ambitions of playing an exhibition games in India, as they seek to build more arenas of NBA standards so that other teams too can schedule some games in the country.

With the acquisition of an NBA franchise by an Indian and with a glut of basketball initiatives and programmes kicking off, the future looks bright for Indian basketball. Hopefully Satnam Singh and Sim Bhullar realize their potential and set foot on an NBA court and become ambassadors to Indian basketball, the firsts of many to come.