Satnam Singh Bhamara
stares down at his feet. At size
22, there's a lot to stare at.
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Reporting from Ballo Ke, India
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The 14-year-old is already 7
feet tall and weighs 250 pounds.
To say that he stands out from
the other boys in this remote
Punjab village, population 463,
is like saying that Everest is a
rather tall mountain.
After its runaway success in
China, the NBA has turned its
sights on India. But basketball
is not terribly popular here; as
one sportswriter says,
"genetically, we're not inclined
that way."
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But what if you could find an
Indian version of Yao Ming, the
7-foot-6-inch Houston Rocket
center who jumpstarted the
Chinese game? His signing led to
lucrative broadcasting and
sponsorship deals, skyrocketing
apparel sales and millions more
fans.
"The Yao Ming factor is
crucial," said Ayaz Memon, a
sports journalist.
From Ballo Ke, local scouts
dispatched Satnam to a regional
basketball academy where, over
the last four years, he worked
to develop skills to match his
height, leading some to call him
India's best young player. This
month, the young giant will head
to the IMG Basketball Academy in
Florida, which is sponsored by a
U.S. talent agency.
"If God keeps blessing us, one
day he'll play on the Indian
national team, even the
basketball world cup," village
elder Aatma Bhamara said, his
unfamiliarity with the name
"NBA" suggesting that the
Americans have their work cut
out for them. "He's putting our
village on the map."
NBA officials say Satnam may or
may not be the one, but they're
determined to build a sport that
was introduced to the country by
missionaries in 1903, and today
is played, enthusiastically if
not always well, by a few
million Indians (which may sound
like a lot, but in a country
with 1.2 billion people, it
remains a niche activity).
They maintain that India, with
its emerging middle class,
rising disposable income and
media-savvy youngsters, has the
raw ingredients to take off as a
basketball market.
"We see great opportunity in
India," said Akash Jain, the
league's director of
international development for
India. "Sometimes you find a
diamond in the rough if you're
lucky.... But our focus is long
term."
Perseverance and a healthy
budget — the NBA won't disclose
its spending — will be
indispensible in a country known
for bureaucracy, poor
infrastructure and a weak
sporting culture apart from the
national obsession, cricket.
India won a single gold medal in
the 2008 Olympics, whereas
China, another developing
country with an enormous
population, snagged 51.
Most schools here lack sporting
facilities, let alone basketball
courts, with sports often viewed
as an unwelcome distraction from
studying.
Take Ushan, in neighboring
Rajasthan state, one of India's
600,000 villages. At Ushan's
one-room school, there's no
toilet, no playground and no
physical education teacher.
Without a shower, students don't
want to play sports in the heat
and return to class sweaty. Most
are poor and own only one set of
clothes.
Girls face added cultural
barriers. In those few areas
boasting state basketball
academies, parents balk at
letting their daughters leave
home to get physical training,
fearing that it could ruin their
marital prospects.
"It's a mind-set problem," said
Teja Singh Dhariwal, head of the
Punjab Basketball Assn.
The state-funded Ludhiana
basketball academy, which Satnam
attended, is among the best in
the country. On a recent
Saturday, potential recruits,
several taller than 6 feet, did
sprints, dribbling exercises,
layups and defensive drills with
reasonable skill.
To attract young prospects like
Satnam, the academy advertises
the sport: "Tall? Give
basketball a try!" But most
recruits are teenagers, a bit
late to start playing if the aim
is to play at top levels.
"You can teach them skills,"
said Sankaram Subramanian, head
coach of the Ludhiana basketball
academy, who honed his own game
playing American U-2 pilots
based in India during the 1950s.
"But teaching them to think, to
conceptualize, takes time."
The NBA has vowed to make
basketball India's
second-most-popular sport after
cricket within four years,
leapfrogging over soccer and
field hockey.
"We're very sure it's a viable
goal," said Harish Sharma, head
of the Basketball Federation of
India.
Last month, the NBA brought over
Lakers forward Pau Gasol to lead
clinics in Indian schools. It
has also helped develop a
community league, the Mahindra
NBA Challenge, in three cities,
with plans to add seven more. It
is training coaches, has set up
a website and last year built
five showcase courts, hoping to
persuade the government and
private developers to build
more.
"We are extremely focused on our
global growth, but we are
prioritizing India," said NBA
marketing executive Heidi
Ueberroth, Peter's daughter.
Doubters here have snickered at
the system that created Yao, who
was essentially bred for the
game after Chinese sports
officials urged his basketball
player parents, China's tallest
couple, to marry and create a
"super" offspring. Later, he was
taken from his parents and
raised by coaches, then
required, on joining the NBA, to
give half his salary to the
state.
"We're not likely to get a magic
player like these Chinese freaks
of nature," said Gulu Ezekiel, a
cricket analyst. "It will only
be popular among the Indian
elites, a small percent with
access to cable TV."
Supporters counter that average
heights are increasing rapidly
with better nutrition and that
the game's simple equipment
makes it ideal for the masses.
The NBA also has global buzz
that could catch on quickly,
they say. At the Ambience Mall
in Gurgaon, near New Delhi,
Orlando Magic center Dwight
Howard swayed his hips last
month and did a couple of dunks
at a portable court before a
cheering crowd as pounding pop
music blared.
All the while, the hunt
continues for a
superstar-in-the-making.
"If we find an Indian Yao Ming,
I'll do a Bollywood dance," said
Andrew Borman, director of the
IMG Basketball Academy in
Florida.
Subramanian, Satnam's former
coach, said the boy has a shot
at the NBA, although he lacks
some of Yao's agility.
Back in Ballo Ke, Satnam stands
beside his 5-foot-2-inch mother
and 7-foot-2-inch father, who is
immensely proud of his son, but
rues his own fate.
"I wish someone had told me
about basketball," said Balbir
Singh Bhamara, who comes from a
line of unusually tall people —
his mother is 6 feet 9. "I
could've gone to America too."
Satnam, the middle of three
children (both siblings are
average height), said basketball
sure beats farming and he hopes
he can make a career of it,
although he'll follow his
parents' advice. He has been
able to watch a few NBA games on
television, he said, and his
favorite player is Kobe Bryant.
Despite being one of India's
hottest prospects, he's still
very much the naive village boy,
coaches and sports officials
said, and studying has never
been his strong suit. He speaks
minimal English and still makes
the occasional 13-hour trip to
New Delhi on dingy buses, where
he has to sit on the wide back
seat because it's the only one
big enough for him.
"He comes back to get his dirty
clothes washed," said his
father, a bit stooped after
years of manual labor, standing
beside the family buffaloes.
"And to drink huge amounts of
local milk."
As Satnam walks around the
600-year-old village pointing
out his primary school, the
general store, the bus stop, he
is soon shadowed by a parade of
children, like a gigantic Pied
Piper.
No one else in the village plays
basketball, but the 7-footer
hopes to change that.
"If I really make it big one
day, my dream is to come back
and build the village a court,"
he said. "Then hopefully more
people will start playing, like
me." |
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