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| Vishesh Bhriguvanshi and Yadwinder Singh, two of the four members of the current Indian 3x3 team which won silver at the recently concluded Asian Beach Games, seen here during the 2013 South Asian Basketball Association (SABA) qualifiers |
In the alternate universe of international 3x3 basketball
exists a strange and pleasantly surprising reality. In this other reality –
across the wormhole of interstellar hoops travel – India is actually one of
Asia’s most successful teams, constantly contending for the podium, fielding
the best little group of players in the continent, and playing with unmatched
confidence.
In the mainstream basketball universe, India is a hoops
underdog, ranking 61st in the world and usually finishing in the
bottom rungs of Asian tournaments. But, as recent results have shown, the 3x3
format has been a whole different ballgame, as India have collected gold medals
and accolades and returned home with their heads held high in pride.
Since FIBA began to hone
the official rules of the halfcourt 3x3 game for the international level,
India has been one of the federations to take full advantage of the quicker,
less popular style of the game, sending out their best players to tournaments
that other nations usually reserved for players outside the regular national
team system. India has won the 3x3 basketball gold medal twice (once for men
and once for women) at the Asian Beach Games since 2008, including our
Women’s squad defeating China for the gold in China’s home court in Haiyang
in 2012. In May last year, India’s Women won
the FIBA Asia 3x3 gold in Qatar. A week later, India’s under-18 men and
women both
won silver medals at the U18 FIBA Asia 3x3 championship in Thailand. India
dominated the South Asian Beach games, winning
double gold for both men and women a few years ago. India’s under-23 men’s
team have also won
a bronze at the KFC 3x3 international challenge in China.
Most recently, the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) sent
men’s and women’s squads to Phuket for the 4th Asian Beach Games.
The women failed to continue their recent momentum, but the men’s side –
featuring India’s top players like Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, Amrit Pal Singh,
Pratham Singh, and Yadwinder Singh – defeated all comers with ease until the
Finals, where they lost
to Qatar and had to settle for a silver medal.
There is no better feeling for an Indian basketball fan than
to see Indian basketball players on the podium, enjoying the fruits of their
success, draped with a tiranga flag over their shoulders and basketballs in
their palms. Even if it’s “just” 3x3 basketball, it’s still kind of a big deal
for the athletes responsible for this success.
Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, the Varanasi-born player who has been
the captain of India’s national team for several years and one of India’s best
domestic and international level players, has also been part of nearly every
senior international 3x3 men’s team that India has fielded since 2008. With
Bhriguvanshi in the lineup, India won the 2008 Asian Beach Games gold medal, the
2011 South Asian Beach Games gold medal, and the 2014 Asian Beach Games silver.
If there is any singular athlete most responsible for India’s successful
results in this modified version of the game, it is him.
“3x3 basketball is a ‘fun’ thing,” he told me in a
conversation recently, “You can enjoy basketball playing it. But the “proper”,
full version of the game, is of course more important to me.”
As it should be: call me old-fashioned, but 3x3 wins are not
satisfying for me as a fan of Indian basketball. I would rather see India
beat China in the group stage of the FIBA Asia Cup – and still
ultimately finish at 7th place – than see a dozen 3x3 gold
medals. The level competitive is just not the same, and the format leaves more
room for chance than for the validation of actual talent.
In many ways, 3x3 halfcourt basketball is one of the common
formats of the street, casual game. Almost every basketball player has played
this modified style of hoops among their friends or pick-up with strangers at
their nearest court. What FIBA 3x has done
is basically brought official structure to basketball’s unofficial cousin.
In the half-court basketball competition, each team has four
players: three starters plus one substitute. Each game is 10 minutes long, with
two halves of five minutes each. A one-minute overtime is held if the score is
tied at the end of regulation. The shot-clock is 12 seconds, and the scoring
limit is 21 points (that is, the first team to 21 wins). No time-outs are
allowed: substitutions are made in dead-ball situations.
The games are short, fast, unpredictable, and thus, can be
exciting. At international tournaments that feature 3x3 tournaments, you could
watch dozens of countries play in a couple of hours, around the same time
period of a full-length basketball game. But the unpredictability and faster
format of the game also takes away from the full potential of the tactics and
athletic abilities that make basketball such a lovable game – something that
deters many serious players and fans from taking the 3x3 format seriously.
Which is also why most of the top basketball teams around
the world (USA, Spain, Argentina, Lithuania, France) and even the top Asian
teams (China, Iran, Korea, Jordan, Philippines) name ‘B’ or ‘C’ or junior
players in their 3x3 rosters and save their biggest stars for the version of
the game that matters: 5-on-5, full-court, 40 minutes per game. Not India,
though, who, in the young history of official 3x3 events, have had no qualms
about doubling up the same stars for both formats.
Part of the reason for this is to give India a chance to get
a competitive result at such events. The other reason is that India doesn’t
have a professional basketball league back home and India’s best players rarely
get the international exposure to match top players from other nations. Through
the 3x3 circuit, top players like Bhriguvanshi get another rare chance to
showcase their skills internationally.
But is there a benefit that can cross over from 3x3 success
to the full version of the game?
“It’s a different thing,” said Bhriguvanshi, “And we can’t
convert it [3x3 success] to “proper” basketball, because it’s small court, only
up to 21, etc.”
Sure, 3x3 has its benefits. It helps to promote the game to
a newer, more impatient fanbase, who only have the time or attention span for
the shortest blimp of competition possible (call it the ‘twitterization’ of
basketball). It brings a more level playing field between players from different
countries, and thus every country – be it the USA or India – has a real chance
of winning any team. Like T20 remixed the longer version of Cricket to a
shorter, faster pace, FIBA wants
3x3 to do the same for basketball.
But, just like there is nothing to match the class and
timeless quality of Test Cricket, there is nothing like ‘Real’ basketball
success that can be matched by 3x3.
3×3 Basketball is here to stay. Even though the
International Olympic Association (IOA) ruled the format out from the 2016
Olympics, FIBA will continue to push the game internationally. 3×3 World
Championships and tours are now being heavily promoted by basketball’s
governing body. The NBA is boosting it with 3×3 tournaments across
India (and Asia). And India’s national teams have begun to participate (and
dominate) Asian 3×3 tournaments.
Last year, the BFI
launched the first-ever national 3x3 basketball championships in India,
holding competitions for Men and Women at the senior and the under-18 level. The
tournament became a vehicle to better prepare and scout Indian players for
3x3’s global rise.
India’s growing national and international clout in 3x3 basketball
is a wonderful thing, but the last thing that the BFI and Indian players need
to do is grow complacent with 3x3 success. If India chooses, we can still
occasionally send our best players to international 3x3 tournaments to help
expand their international exposure, but like other countries, we should also
think about using it as a vehicle to develop youngsters. 3x3 success is one
thing, but the BFI cannot boast of gold medals at the Asian Beach Games if they
are losing by 30 or 40 to the same teams in full FIBA Asia tournaments.
Despite recent improvements, India are still the minnows in
traditional basketball tournaments at the international stage. Good
performances at 3x3 tournaments have been a flicker of hope, but this success
should be part of the journey, not the destination. Instead of resting our
laurels with 3x3, we should use the confidence of those performances to propel
our game where it matters.
