Elevating the Game: Elevate Basketball Academy begins professional training center in Mumbai

India's success and failures have been conducted yin and yang with the efforts of the public and the private sector. Where the government failed it's people, the people stepped up and created their own success.

And in basketball - where for decades the world's second-highest population has yet to take a notable step forward - we're finally going to have someone step up and help provide the professional training and support required to turn India's potential into reality.

Elevate Sports - who have been supporting basketball in the country for several years - partnered with Global Sports Partners (GSP), an internationally recognized sports consulting company, to launch India's most professional basketball training Academy in Mumbai. The first center of the Elevate Basketball Academy opened up at the Indian Gymkhana in Matunga on February 1. With international basketball experts and coaches at the helm, the Academy aims to track and hone grassroots basketball talent from around the city and help them realize their hoop dreams.

Elevate have been organizing and supporting basketball events in Mumbai for a long time, particularly the annual crowd-pleasing Savio Cup and Ramu Memorial Basketball Tournament, both of which are some of the most professionally-conducted basketball championships in India.

Elevate have entered an initial three-year partnership with GSP to launch the Basketball Academy. Vinod Muthukumar, the Managing Partner of Elevate Sports, has expressed their plans to launch many more centers after Indian Gymkhana in the city over the coming weeks.

Unlike a conventional basketball academy, the aim for Elevate will be to identify talent from different parts of the city and provide them a structured training programme with special emphasis on fitness, diet and conditioning. Muthukumar said that they will be targeting school programmes, with participating kids initially paying a fee. "At a later stage the kids will be selected based on their performance to form an elite squad where the training will be more intensive," added Muthukumar, "By targeting schools, we get a ready bunch of kids and we shall be also be targeting the nearby vicinity kids to join the academy."

The total programme will include health and nutrition information, a fitness plan, as well as basketball training

Perhaps the most important aspect of the Academy programme, and one which sets the academy apart from many other Academies and school basketball programmes, is the opportunity to be coached by USA trained coaches - brought together by GSP - using coaching styles and methods employed by the preeminent basketball nation in the world. The coaches have been selected and trained by USA coaches who have 30 years of experience coaching all age groups in multiple countries and at various levels.

Once fully operational, Elevate-GSP will take its advanced methods to schools across the country and establish academies there. In the long run, this would serve as a model to groom talent at the grassroots level and prepare youngsters for the future proposed Indian professional basketball league.

The Academy promises to use a 'player-centered' approach to training and coaching. The focus will be on individual skill development through a personal, one-on-one basketball instruction programme. The academy aims at enabling players to be able to move through the system and as they do so pick up the tactics and skills to move on to the next level. It will embrace all aspects of player development to build the better person, the better athlete and ultimately the better basketball player. The one-on-one instruction, along with group/team training, will give them the opportunity to instruct students of all ages, backgrounds, and skill levels (6-17 years old) while accomplishing the task of individual skill development advancement.

On signing up at the Academy, a player will undergo an initial player profile to evaluate and record their fitness level, basketball skills level, and goals for their progression in the Academy. Each player would be and given an individualized program,e to follow. The players would undergo regular 3 month reviews, always identifying their progress and areas to continue working towards their goals along their sports journey and beyond! Players will train for up to 5-10 hours a week around their academic timetable.

At least 10 percent of the student admissions at the Elevate Basketball Academy will be reserved for talented players from under-privileged backgrounds.

Looking ahead, Elevate plans to market players from India and present them to team owners and college athletic departments primarily in the USA. Elevate will work closely with these players to create a player promotion kit which would contain a video of their game and highlight their talent through a presentation and also publish them on our website so that scouts could view their profile and select them for try-outs. The eventual aim is to place the players in the NBA and the NCAA Division One Teams, and other leagues within Europe and Asia that offer great opportunity to market Indian talent.

Elevate are aspiring to be India's leading sports solutions company. Currently, they provide services in event planning and management, basketball talent scouting, television and web-enabled sports production, and now, the Academy.

GSP is an internationally recognized sport consulting company with strategically placed representatives throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The company work at all levels of sport, including Professional, Olympic, Club, University and Recreational.

Hopefully, the Elevate Academy's mission - to produce skilled, motivated, and athletic basketball players in India - can come to fruition soon so that some of those talents can start breaking into India's national squads and of course, fulfill every basketball fan's dream of seeing an Indian one day play for the world's best basketball leagues. The Academy could motivate others to start taking sports like basketball more seriously and professionally in India.