With unnecessary bans on two star players, Basketball Federation of India has once again proven to be its own enemy

This article was first published in my 'Hoopistani' column for The Times of India Sports on June 10, 2018. Click here to read the original feature.

Last month, the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) banned all players hoping to participate in an upstart 3x3 basketball league—the 3BL—from participating in full, five-on-five basketball activities at the domestic or international stage. A few months before that, India’s best players Amjyot Singh and Amritpal Singh were removed from the national team-list because of “trust” issues. Two years ago, the BFI slapped a ban on 122 players, coaches, and staff taking part in the UBA professional basketball league in the country.

In 2010, the BFI attempted to bar the country’s best player Geethu Anna Jose from playing pro in Australia. Ten years ago, the ban was on India’s best point guard TJ Sahi for alleged indiscipline. In 2006, it was India’s best player at the time—Sozhasingarayer Robinson—banned for missing a training camp. In 2005, one of India’s greatest basketball players Jayasankar Menon was handed a “life ban” for participating in an on-court fight between players.

And earlier this week, the BFI banned Amjyot Singh and Palpreet Singh Brar (both former NBA G-League draftees) for one year for “indisciplinary activities”.

We’ve seen this movie before, and its ending is easy to predict: losses all around for everyone involved in Indian basketball—the players, the federation, the fans, and the sport in itself.

In a stunning decision on Monday, the BFI handed Amjyot (26) and Brar (24)—Punjabi players who have been lynchpins of the national team—one-year bans for alleged indiscipline before and during the Commonwealth Games in Australia in April. Brar’s ban was handed because he abused the national team while drinking on social media. Amjyot—the most-talented player in India—was banned for allegedly striking a teammate and causing division among players in the team.

Via Pratyush Raj for The Times of India:

The federation revealed that both the players’ objectionable actions had rendered them unfit to represent the national side and even be a part of the national team.

“A national basketball player flaunts a picture on social media application Snapchat, abusing the nation after consumption of hard liquor. Is he really fit to be the part of the national squad?” Chander Mukhi Sharma, the secretary-general of BFI, said while sharing the information about suspension of two players from national side.

“Just before the match at the Commonwealth Games, Amjyot had also slapped his teammate and compatriot Arshpreet Bhullar. Moreover, there had been complaints against Amjyot of misbehaviour with the national coach. They did not report to the camp for three days. They were causing trouble at the camp, indulging in groupism. A disciplinary panel was constituted which decided the punishment,” said Mukhi.

…Amjyot was part of the team that went to Gold Coast. Amjyot again tried to break up the team into factions in Gold Coast. As a result, it cost us all the matches in Gold Coast,” he added.

The decision to ban the two players was taken by the BFI’s disciplinary committee, which included India’s interim men’s head coach Rajinder Singh. A disciplinary committee member said that Amjyot and Brar reported late to the national camp in Bengaluru and “disrupted the atmosphere”.

This is a surprising set of allegations, particularly on Amjyot. Sharma is essentially blaming India’s losses at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast on him. Furthermore, even if the allegations on Amjyot are true, Sharma and the federation have announced an unnecessarily severe punishment—one year—for relatively minor issues like rifts between the team and Snapchat insults. 

But then again, Sharma, the current federation, and even the BFI of the past have a history of overreacting to errors made by athletes, the same athletes who are the backbone of India’s national team structure and are the only reason that India were even considered a rising power in Asian basketball.

I used the past tense above—“were considered”—deliberately. By continuously shooting themselves in the foot, the BFI are becoming Indian basketball’s worst enemy, stunting the growth of the sport with the intention of ensuring that they have absolute power over all players and other entities in Indian basketball. They punished Amjyot and Amritpal over a baseless “trust” issue in the FIBA World Cup Qualifiers, tried to hurt competing leagues like 3BL and UBA by disallowing players to take part in both events, and unofficially blackballed star players like former women’s captain Prashanti Singh for being absent for a few days. They have had issues with Geethu, with TJ, with Robinson, with Menon.

And with countless more to chose to remain silent in fear that angering the federation would rob them of their only opportunity to make a living through basketball.

Amjyot is among the “Big Three” of Indian basketball and has been the country’s top scorer in every international tournament he has participated in over the past five years. Brar was also a major contributor to the national squad until recently. In 2016, Brar became the first Indian to be drafted directly into the NBA’s G-League by the Long Island Nets, although he was cut before the final roster. Amjyot, who played professionally in Japan in 2016, was drafted into the G-League by the OKC Blue in 2017 and appeared in 30 games.

The exploits of Amjyot and Brar, plus of other important players like Amritpal Singh who played in Australia’s NBL last season, are an exciting, new phenomenon for Indian basketball. The BFI have seemingly been unprepared to have an appropriate reaction to these athletes having their own professional independence. Until recently, nearly every Indian basketball player had to rely on India’s national teams and domestic events for basketball opportunities. But changing times have offered new avenues, and the BFI have responded negatively to this independence. The strange case of Amjyot and Amritpal summoned to India for February’s FIBA World Cup Qualifiers only to find their names off the team list showcased the federation’s troubling attitude towards its top players.

For Amjyot and Brar, the bans might be about a bigger issue than the alleged misconduct. Both players were involved in the build-up of the upcoming 3BL, a first-of-its-kind 3x3 basketball league in India. But on the same day that the 3BL was announced, the BFI released a memo to all secretaries of India’s affiliated basketball units, giving an update on their own 3x3 event and banning all players hoping to participate in opposing 3x3 leagues from 5x5 basketball in/for India (and vice versa). Amjyot has since been back in the US with hopes to train for a call-up to the G-League again, while Brar—already cut from the national squad—committed to the 3BL.

The 3BL launched on Saturday, June 9 in New Delhi. The BFI’s latest ban on these two players came earlier in the same week.

On Friday, Amjyot released a statement while in Philadelphia in regards to the BFI ban. “I am disappointed with this action from the BFI,” he said, and added that the altercation between him and Bhullar at the Commonwealth Games occurred in the “normal course of practice”.

“I am the last person to indulge in any alleged violence and my reaction was only in self-defence… I feel that my actions do not even remotely warrant a one-year ban as imposed by the BFI.”

Amjyot also denied Sharma’s allegations that he was trying to break the team up in factions. “I strive to be selfless and a complete team player both on and off the court and I am confident that majority of the players who have interacted or played with me will tell you the same.”

“This one-year ban has taken away the opportunity to represent my country at the international level… I am always ready to play for my country and will be privileged to do so if called upon by the BFI in the future.”

On the same day as Amjyot’s statement, his father in Chandigarh told TOI that the family would consider legal action if his ban is not lifted by the federation. 

Regardless of how this messy situation untangles, one thing is for sure: the years of over-reaction has proven that the BFI has to mature and react appropriately to competition—like the 3BL—and small infractions. But for now, the federation’s ban will hurt the team’s immediate future and push young players and outside investors from losing faith in the system.

For years, those outside the Indian basketball world have wondered how a country with such a large population has never reached its potential in basketball (and many other sports). Part of the reason for this failure has been on display in this saga. The federation needs to realise that basketball growth will not be a simple lay-up; it will be messy and unpredictable, it will be full of hiccups, and it will sometimes happen without their permission. Sometimes outside competition will spur on this growth, and sometimes our star players will find new opportunities for themselves that might clash with the federation’s path. For basketball’s sake in India, the BFI has to get used to this unpredictability instead of trying to control or suppress it.

If Amjyot and Palpreet truly deserve to be discipline, then they should definitely be handed a reasonable punishment. The players need to keep the federation happy, and the federation needs to do the same for the players.

A reaction like this, however—a groaning repeat of history—is only going to suppress the sport. The sport is bigger than the federation, and all sides must get over their infighting and work together to help India reach its hoops potential.

Rajesh Patel, the most-decorated basketball coach in India, passes away at 62

This article was first published in my column for The Times of India Sports on May 8, 2018. Read the original piece here.

I vividly remember one of the first times I saw Rajesh Patel—coach and spearheading force of Chhattisgarh basketball—in action on the side-lines of a basketball court. It was the 2010 Junior National Basketball Championship in Vashi, Maharashtra, the annual tournament featuring the top under-18 players in the nation. By then, Patel had already turned Chhattisgarh’s junior, youth, and sub-junior level girls into the most successful programme of the decade, winning dozens of medals across the various competitions. He was Chhattisgarh basketball secretary, its chief talent scout and recruiter, it’s media relations-person, and on this day in Vashi in a preliminary round game against Delhi, he was there in his favourite role: head coach.

Chhattisgarh had begun the game in a blitz, leading 25-2 after the first quarter. But as the girls walked back to the bench, Patel still seemed unhappy.

“You slowed down in the end,” he told them. “This is a 40-minute game, and we have only played 10. We lead by 20 now, I want us to lead by 50 by the time the game's over.”

With ruthless efficiency, they followed his command, and by the game ended, Chhattisgarh had secured a 69-48 victory. Not quite the margin he had envisioned, but it would be good enough.

Ironically, the 2010 Junior Nationals were one of the few years when Chhattisgarh’s girls didn’t win a medal. For Patel, such failure was a rare, almost alien occurrence. For 33 years, he dedicated his life to coaching the game to youngsters from Chhattisgarh’s rural, tribal, and other nearby regions. As head coach of Chhattisgarh since 2001, he delivered 104 medals, including 69 gold medals, to the state in the 17-year stretch in National Basketball Championships, National Games, and the Federation Cup. In 2015, he was named India’s Most Successful Basketball Coach by the Limca Book of Records.

It was en route to another Junior National Championship—the 2018 Junior Nationals in Ludhiana, Punjab—that he breathed his last. Patel got a sudden cardiac arrest during the train journey on Monday, May 7, and passed away in Panipat. He was 62-years-old, and was reportedly diabetic and suffering from kidney issues.

Patel will be remembered as one of the most dedicated and hard-working leaders in Indian basketball. In his youth, he played for Madhya Pradesh and joined the Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) in 1980. By 1985, he turned all of his efforts into coaching the basketball recruits at Bhilai.

In 2000, Chhattisgarh gained independent statehood from Madhya Pradesh and Patel became the state’s basketball secretary the following year. He set up a residential basketball academy in Bhilai and recruited dozens of players from nearby regions—many of whom were from tribal or underprivileged backgrounds—to teach them the game. His mission was simple: to help these young girls earn employment through the sports quota.

He found astonishing success. Patel’s Chhattisgarh teams were renowned for their speed and efficiency, running lesser prepared opponents off the floor with ease. They won or were in the mix of winning every under-age championship in Indian domestic basketball for nearly two decades, and it was only when his top players were successfully recruited by units like the Indian Railways that the senior level Chhattisgarh teams saw a dip in results.

Over the years, he helped 85 young women secure jobs under the sports quota at the Indian Railways. 41 of his alumni have represented the Indian national team at various age levels, and seven have been Indian national team captains. Some of the top players to have risen under Patel’s tutelage include Anju Lakra, Bharti Netam, Seema Singh, Poonam Chaturvedi, Kavita Akula, Akanksha Singh, Maddu Pushpa and many more. Several male players like Ajay Pratap Singh also credit Patel and the BSP for their rise to prominence.

Notable stories among these players include that of Poonam Chaturvedi, originally from Kanpur, was discovered by Patel and grew to be the tallest woman basketball player in India at 6-foot-11. Chaturvedi was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2014 but made a comeback to the game and continued to be a major part of Patel’s Chhattisgarh state team. On the other side of the “height” spectrum is 22-year-old Kavita Akula, a five-foot-six point guard who earned scholarship to the IMG Academy in Florida at 14 and, last year, became the first Indian to be offered a full basketball scholarship in an NCAA Division 1 university, the Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona.

For his contributions to grassroots basketball in India, Patel was felicitated at the FICCI sports summit in 2010.

Twice during his tenure, Chhattisgarh’s Senior teams reached the finals of the prestigious National Championship. In 2014, Chhattisgarh pulled off a stunning upset of Railways in the final of the National Championship in New Delhi, ending Railways’ ten-year winning streak. The victory inspired Bollywood, too, and a production team led by Lara Dutta and Mahesh Bhupathi has since shown interest in making a film about Patel and his squad.

Patel continued to lead and coach until his last days, and his sudden death on Monday brought an outpouring of respect an emotion from Indian basketball veterans on social media and in the news.

The Basketball Federation of India (BFI) wrote in a statement: “The Indian Basketball family lost a legend today as former Indian team Head Coach and current Chhattisgarh team Head Coach Mr. Rajesh Patel passed away. Coach Rajesh Patel was one of the best Basketball Coaches in India and was a true gem of a person. May his soul rest in peace.”

“His dedication to basketball is beyond everything,” wrote India’s veteran coach, former player, and referee Shiba Maggon. “His life is a complete journey of basketball. His efforts gave hundreds of families food in the house, jobs to the girls. He raised hopes for the girls to make something out of life.”

Anju Lakra, one of the many success stories of Patel’s programme, summed up the coach’s extraordinary influence: “He helped us break free.”

Patel will always be synonymous with Chhattisgarh Basketball, and will particularly be remembered for leading the charge to help female athletes in a culture where their efforts are often undermined and their opportunities few and far between. He exemplified the potential of the sport, it’s power to provide both excellence on the court and hope off of it.

On the way to the Junior Nationals, Patel passed away doing what he loved best, leading a group of young women to more basketball opportunities. His legacy will now be carried forward by the athletes whose lives he transformed.

Amjyot Singh and Jeena Scaria honoured at #TOISA2018 Basketball Awards

This article was first published in my 'Hoopistani' column for The Times of India Sports on February 27, 2018. Click here to read the original piece.

For 26-year-old Amjyot Singh, the cricketer-turned-basketball superstar from Chandigarh, the moment was at the NBA G-League Draft on October 21, when his name was selected by the Oklahoma City Blue. A week later, he donned the jersey and stepped on court for the Blue, officially joining the select club of Indians in the NBA’s minor league.

For 24-year-old Jeena Scaria, the former high-jumper from Kerala who now jumps high on the basketball court, the moment was Puducherry on January 14 last year, when time expired on Kerala’s 68-59 victory over Telangana and secured her state’s first Senior Nationals title in over thirty-years. Scaria, dominant throughout the tournament, was her team’s unofficial MVP in this triumph.

Singh and Scaria are two basketball maestros in their prime, arguable the best male and female basketball players in the country right now. It was only right, then, that on one of the biggest nights in India sports, the two were honoured for their memorable performances over the past year.

Basketball honours were handed out for the first time at the Times of India Sports Awards (TOISA-2018) on Monday. Singh was named the Basketball Player of the Year by the jury’s choice, and Scaria the Basketball Player of the Year by popular choice. Both players were in attendance at the gala event in Mumbai on Monday, among a number of India’s top athletes. Badminton star Kidambi Srikanth claimed the highest honour of the night as India’s 2018 Sportsman of the Year.

Over the past year, Amjyot Singh’s crowning achievement was to become the second Indian (after Satnam Singh) to make it to the NBA’s G-League with the Oklahoma City Blue in late October. The sharp-shooting 6-foot-8 forward has seen his role grow with the Blue over the past few months and has taken a step closer to the NBA than any Indian citizen before him. Back home, Amjyot continued to be a lynchpin for India’s national team. He was India’s captain at the FIBA Asia Cup, and finished the tournament leading the team in points (13.0) and assists (4.3). He was also India’s top player at other international trips to the William Jones Cup and the BRICS Games.

Jeena Scaria took centre-stage for her home state when she led Kerala to their first Senior Nationals gold medal since the mid-eighties. She was one of India’s top players in the squad that won Division B at the FIBA Asia Women’s Cup in Bengaluru in July. She was also part of India’s 3×3 team which made it to the semi-final of the FIBA 3×3 Asia Cup in Mongolia in late October.

Both players will now hope to script another memorable year in 2018. Singh continues to earn bit minutes for the Blue and is growing more comfortable in the league with each passing game.

Later this year, India will hope that he returns to the national team for a number of important tournaments, including the Common Wealth Games in Australia, FIBA World Cup Qualifiers in Syria and Jordan, and the Asian Games in Indonesia. Scaria will be counted on to be a leader for India’s Women’s team at the CommonWealth Games and the Asian Games, too.

This honour should boost the confidence of both these talented players so they can elevate their game to an even higher level over the next few years.

Is India ready to host an NBA preseason game?

This article was first published in my 'Hoopistani' column for The Times of India Sports on February 19, 2018. Click here for the original piece.

When Karnataka’s top basketball official K. Govindraj rose to the helm of presidency of the Basketball Federation of India (BFI), most of the country’s national basketball operations were shifted down to the state’s capital, Bengaluru. India’s national teams began to hold all of their camps and practices in the city. While world-class indoor infrastructure is few and far between in India, the BFI found an ideal venue in Bengaluru’s famous Sree Kantaveera Stadium for domestic and international games.

The arena, in the heart of one of India’s most cosmopolitan cities, passed the International Basketball Association’s (FIBA) requirements and India was rewarded two major international events in 2017: the FIBA Asia Women’s Cup and the FIBA Asia U16 Championship for Women. In July, the venue attracted Asia’s best women’s basketball teams, local fans, and even basketball Hall of Famer Yao Ming for the first of these championships. On the tournament’s final day, the 4,000-seater arena was filled to capacity as India’s senior women’s team won Division B in dramatic fashion. Fans erupted with joy as Shireen Limaye hit a game-winning shot. The tournament had been a success.

Three months later, however, before the U16 version of Asia’s top women’s tournament welcomed basketball contingents back to India, Bengaluru was hit with some of the worst rains in over a century. The rains flooded the city’s crumbling urban infrastructure and seeped out the drainage system. The Kantaveera Stadium, which was built on what was once the ‘Sampige Tank’ flooded after rainwater and sewage inflow in August and then after the rains in mid-October, too. When India’s own U16 women’s team came down to Bengaluru in anticipation of the FIBA Asia U16 Women’s Championship, the famous venue was damaged.

After practices were delayed the disrupted, the stadium was eventually cleaned up and prepared for the tournament. Team India won the U16 tournament’s Division B like their ‘senior’ predecessors, and all was smooth again. In November, the arena hosted an international FIBA World Cup qualifier against Syria. This week, it will host two more qualifiers against Lebanon and Jordan.

But the flooding—which affected what is India’s best public basketball arena—served as a warning sign. Even as the country marches ambitiously forward into the 21st century, many of our facilities still have remnants of the 20th. Most of India’s top players have grown up hooping on outdoor courts, braving laborious hot summers, freezing cold winters, wet monsoons, dangerous cracked cement surfaces, and cricketers setting up wickets on the court. There are some decent indoor facilities like the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Chennai, the Thyagaraj Stadium in New Delhi, the Guru Nanak Stadium in Ludhiana, or Bengaluru’s Sree Kantaveera. But basketball is a low priority sport in the country and its overall infrastructure still lags far behind.

The world’s most lucrative basketball league, however—with intentions to increase their presence in the massive Indian market—feels slightly more ambitious about India’s prospects.

Over in Los Angeles, the world-famous National Basketball Association (NBA) hosted its All Star celebrations over the weekend, a showcase of the finest talent that the North American league has to offer. While no Indian player has ever played in the NBA, the league has been growing its presence in India for the past decade and have sent a number of superstar players to Indian shores to promote the game—including NBA champion and Finals MVP Kevin Durant last summer.

During a press conference on Saturday, the NBA’s commissioner Adam Silver surprised the international media by declaring that the league hopes to bring a preseason game to India.

“We have an excellent relationship with the Reliance Foundation and with other corporate partners in India,” said Silver, “We have an office in Mumbai, and one of the things we're looking at, which we hope to do relatively soon, is bring a preseason game to India. A little is dependent on the arena infrastructure, but we've heard some good news from the market in terms of Delhi and Mumbai about plans of new arenas. So that's something we're hopeful to do.”

Over the years, NBA preseason and regular season games have been held at several other Asian destinations, such as Greater China regions (an annual occurrence for a dozen years), the Philippines, and Japan. It’s not a surprise that, India, which doesn’t have the basketball culture or history of these other countries, was never seriously considered in the past.

But in 2013, Mumbai-born Vivek Ranadive became the first majority Indian-origin owner of an NBA franchise when he purchased the Sacramento Kings, and within a matter of months, began to hold talks with the NBA about bringing a preseason game to India. These plans have been shelved since, but the NBA has been growing its presence in the Indian grassroots and with local corporate partners. On Saturday, Silver further credited Ranadive’s insistence of India as a potential host of a future NBA exhibition game.

“…[Ranadive] was born in Mumbai,” said Silver. “In addition to constantly reminding me about getting an All-Star Game in Sacramento, he says, we really want to play in India. So it’s something that I have a feeling we'll get done in the next few years.”

For NBA fanatics in India, this is incredible news. Growing up as an NBA fan from the 90s, I could have never imagined superstars ever coming to our shores—let alone entire teams taking part in an official NBA (exhibition) game. If the league can pull this off, it would boost the popularity of the sport immensely. Yes, India has the experience of star-power and glitz with Cricket’s IPL; but the NBA—with its extravagant production value and otherworldly talent on the floor—would be an entertainment event on a whole different stratosphere.

Over the past few years, the NBA’s relationship with the Reliance Foundation has created a robust Jr. NBA foundation programme for millions of young players in the grassroots. At the other end of the spectrum, the league launched the NBA India Academy in Greater Noida last year, providing a training ground for two dozen of the nation’s best hopes. The league is ready for the next major step in India.

But is India ready for the league?

Silver’s concerns about arenas in India are real. As much as it might sound like a simplification to compare India to China because of our similar populations, India still lags far behind China in terms of sporting infrastructure. Basketball is perhaps China’s most popular sport, and the country has several international-quality basketball arenas, many are used by the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA) teams. A more accurate comparison to India might be the Philippines, but they feature at least one major destination—the Mall of Asia Arena in Manila—that satisfied the NBA’s needs. Plus, the Philippines is the world’s most hoops-obsessed nation, and any “risks” for the NBA in hosting a game there in October 2013 was far overshadows by its rewards.

The Philippines is a developing nation, and basketball—at its rawest, most stripped-down level—is an inexpensive sport. Just like neighbourhood gullie cricket, basketball can be a simple game, only needing a hoop, a bouncy ball, and some willing competitors. This is why, even in India, so many school-kids grow up with close access to the game.

The NBA, however, is not an inexpensive league. It stands as one of the richest leagues in the world with each the average value of each of its thirty teams at a record $1.65 billion. With stars like LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, and James Harden, the NBA employs of the world’s richest athletes in its ranks, too.

For a brand of this stature, coming to India is a calculated risk. Viewership for NBA games has skyrocketed over the past few years thanks to the broadcast on Sony SIX, but basketball still hasn’t attracted the country’s mainstream audience. As for live events, basketball is still something that fans are reluctant to pay for. India has no full-time professional basketball league. The UBA has held short leagues in cities like Hyderabad, Goa, and Chennai with free entry for fans. The same is true for the BFI’s national championships.

If the NBA wants to focus on star-power or political clout, they may consider venues in Mumbai or New Delhi, respectively. But the Sree Kantaveera has become India’s “hone court” of sorts in the last few years after being seasoned by numerous FIBA competitions. When the NBA eventually brings that preseason game to India, Bengaluru might have a good chance of becoming the first choice of venue.

It will take a little bit of effort from both sides to make this dream come true, a well-run ‘pick-and-roll’ play where India provides an improved platform for the NBA, and the NBA sets India up for an easy path forward. With time, the rewards in India should outweigh the risk, and if all the forces align in the right direction, that pick-and-roll could turn into a game-winner.

Meet the Indian basketball stars nominated for 2018 Times of India Sports Awards

This piece was first published in my column for The Times of India Sports on January 30, 2018. Click here to read the original piece.

Despite its large population, India is still a relative minnow in international basketball, a nation where one of the world’s most popular sports is only an afterthought. While the sport has developed considerably over the past decade, India is still looking for a spark to ignite the next generation.

That spark can be provided with star-power. With Yao Ming, China got a readymade superstar who helped turn an entire generation of young Chinese into basketball fans. India has a considerably different sports atmosphere, and although basketball might never become the country’s top sport, it could gain considerable fan following with successful role models.

No, there’s no Indian ‘Yao’ in the horizon, yet; but we feature our own set of star players who have been grinding away over the past few years and found success on the domestic and international stage. This year, for the first time, the Times of India Sports Awards (TOISA) 2018 will feature an award for India’s best basketball player. Here are the five nominees, and each of their years in review.

Amritpal Singh: 2017 was certainly a banner year for Punjab’s Amritpal Singh (26), headlined by the news that he became the first-ever Indian to play for Australia’s National Basketball League (NBL). After impressing in workouts, training camps, and the pre-season tour, Amritpal was signed by the Sydney Kings and has since played a consistent backup role in the NBL. For the national team, where he is the starting center for India, Amritpal played in many major tournaments including the FIBA World Cup Qualifiers, the FIBA Asia Cup, and the South Asian Basketball Championship. In the latter, he captained India to a victory and was the tournament’s MVP. Amritpal was also best player of the Uttarakhand and ONGC’s squads that won gold medals in the two biggest domestic basketball meets in 2017: The Senior Nationals and the Federation Cup.

Amjyot Singh: Like his fellow front-court mate Amritpal, Amjyot Singh (26) of Chandigarh broke barriers and made history for Indian basketball. Amjyot’s crowning achievement was to become the second Indian (after Satnam Singh) to make it to the NBA’s G-League with the Oklahoma City Blue in late October. The sharp-shooting 6-foot-8 forward has seen his role grow with the Blue over the past few months and has taken a step closer to the NBA than any Indian citizen before him. Back home, Amjyot continued to be a lynchpin for India’s national team. He was India’s captain at the FIBA Asia Cup, and finished the tournament leading the team in points (13.0) and assists (4.3). He was also India’s top player at other international trips to the William Jones Cup and the BRICS Games.

Anitha Paul Durai: 2017 marked the beginning of Paul Durai’s (32) “second innings” with Indian basketball. The veteran forward from Chennai returned to the national team after a maternity leave and enjoyed a stellar comeback. She was the captain of the national team and leading scorer (16.4 ppg) when India won Division B of the FIBA Asia Cup for Women held in Bengaluru. When India’s U16 squad stepped out to participate in the Youth version of the same Women’s Cup in Bengaluru later in the year, Paul Durai got her first chance to serve as the team’s assistant coach. Like the seniors, the U16 team won Division B and promotion into Division A.

Jeena Scaria: Scaria (24) took centre-stage for her home state when she led Kerala to their first Senior Nationals gold medal in over thirty years. She was one of India’s top players in the squad that won Division B at the FIBA Asia Women’s Cup in Bengaluru in July. She was also part of India’s 3x3 team which made it to the semi-final of the FIBA 3x3 Asia Cup in Mongolia in late October.

Vishesh Bhriguvanshi: Bhriguvanshi (26), India’s best backcourt player and a former national captain, had a topsy-turvy year, but still managed enough to make it to the list of nominees. He became the first Indian to ink a training deal with an Australian NBL team: the Adelaide 36ers. In his first appearance at the UBA Basketball League, Bhriguvanshi was named the league’s Indian MVP, averaging around 28 points, 10 assists, and 9 rebounds per game, and led the Bengaluru Beast to their first UBA Finals. He helped India win gold at the South Asian Basketball Championship in Maldives and also played in the BRICS Games and the FIBA Asia Cup. An injury in the former, however, side-lined the star guard, and India suffered in international matches without him.

One of these players will go home with the honour of being TOISA 2018’s best basketball player. You can make your own voice heard and vote for the TOISA Sports Awards here.

Indian hoop dreaming-From makeshift school courts to a Jr. NBA World Championship

This article was first published in my 'Hoopistani' column for The Times of India Sports on December 23, 2017. Click here to read the original version.


I was ten or eleven years old when I first began to play basketball. There was only a small concrete ground available in those days for junior-school kids in my boarding school in Mussoorie. There were no clear demarcation lines, and the estimated length from basket to basket was about two-thirds the size of a regulation court. On one side was a regulation-height rim on a pole with a wooden backboard. On the other side, instead of a pole, there was an old deodar tree, where someone had nailed a backboard against the trunk. We were sure that this rim was a lower than ten feet.

So many of my earliest memories of the game are tied to this makeshift “court”. The high Himalayan altitude, the cold winter air, and sometimes, even homework couldn’t hold us back. My friends and I took part in intense half-court and full-court games, intra-dorm tournaments, and other challenges like “Knockout” or “Air-21”.

Often, a dozen of us would just stand around the basket after dinner for random shootarounds where the rules were simple: you only get the ball if you can rebound it over everyone else, and you can keep the ball as long as you keep scoring. The hunger to have possession of the ball gave me a keen sense of rebounding and forced me to work on my mid-range game. We had to be careful not to throw or pass the ball too hard: on one end, we had offices and dorm-rooms; on the other, there was only a twenty-feet tall fence that separated us from the khud of jungle in the mountain-drop. If the ball bounced down the mountain, well, sorry brother, day or night, you have to go get it.

I fell in the love with basketball, of course, and as time passed, I played on better courts at a higher level, and I stayed addicted to the game as a grew older. I had dreams of greater hoops glory, of course: dreams of playing for my school, or for the Indian national team, or counting down “3…2…1…” and hitting the buzzer-beating game-winner in the NBA Finals.

But I realised very early that these fantasies would remain fantastical. I knew that, despite the opportunities I got, it was already too little, too late.

Fortunately, a new generation of young Indian players can bring their fantasies closer to reality than my peers and I ever could. For this new generation of young hoop dreamers, the NBA is coming closer to India.

Partnering with the Reliance Foundation, the NBA made their most serious advance into grassroots basketball development in India in 2013, launching the Reliance Foundation Jr. NBA programme, with plans to instruct over 100,000 school-kids. Fast-forward four years, and the 2017-18 season of the programme is aiming to engage more than 45 lakh youth from 34 cities nationwide. NBA-affiliated coaches are helping shape physical education curricula in schools and training coaches how to coach the right way. A new generation of kids, who would worry about the ball bouncing down the khud, could now have more opportunities to leap forward in the game than ever before.

In 2018, the best of these young talents will go international. Earlier this week, the NBA announced the inaugural Jr. NBA World Championship, a first-of-its-kind competition that will feature the top boys and girls teams ages 14-and-under from the United States and around the world.

The championship will tip off in spring 2018 around the world, featuring boys and girls divisions, each comprising 16 regional champions (eight US and eight international teams). The winning boys and girls teams from eight newly-created USA regional tournaments (Central, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, Northeast, Northwest, South, Southeast and West), plus teams representing eight international regions (Africa & Middle East, Asia Pacific, Canada, China, Europe, India, Mexico and South America), will compete in the culminating event at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Osceola County, Florida, from August 7-12, 2018.

India will send two teams to the competition: one boys’, one girls’. The top performers in the 5-on-5 competitions from the Reliance Foundation Jr NBA Program will make for a city All-Star Team. One boys’ and one girls’ team from each of the eight participating cities will be selected to compete in a National Final. The winners of the National Final will then represent India at the Jr NBA World Championship.

The NBA has appointed Cleveland Cavaliers guard Dwyane Wade and Los Angeles Sparks forward Candace Parker as the lead global ambassadors for the World Championship. The championship could be basketball’s answer to the baseball’s popular international “Little League”.

This is fantastic news not just for young Indian players, but for youth basketball around the world. True, it is only a miniscule fraction of players that will actually get to play in the final event, but the dream of playing in a major junior international tournament should trickle down and inspire young players around the country.

Whether you’re a kid like I was--shooting baskets at a tree-trunk—or an elite young athlete suiting up for India’s youth teams, this is an exciting new development. The opportunity to compete for the best junior teams in India should propel the competitive spirit of more young players, and reward the best ones with an opportunity to showcase their skills at a global stage.

Indian basketball struggles to rise in FIBA Rankings in 2017

This article was first published in my 'Hoopistani' column for The Times of India Sports on December 10, 2017. Click here to read the original piece.

Often, no amount of statistical logic can dampen the pure jubilation of success. In July this year, in front of a packed stadium of cheering home fans at the Sri Kantaveera Stadium in Bengaluru, India’s multi-talented forward Shireen Limaye took a fearless three-point shot at the buzzer. The occasion was the Division B final of the FIBA Asia Cup for Women, the biggest basketball tournament in the continent. The opponent was Kazakhstan. The scores were tied.

Limaye made the shot. The crowd went wild. The rest of the team celebrated wildly mid-court. India won the final, and the victory assured them promotion to Division A.

It was one of the most memorable shots in recent Indian history, capping off India’s incredible 5-0 record at the tournament.

And yet, because the victory came against other lower division squads, it barely registered India’s rankings in relation to the rest of the basketball world. In fact, India’s rankings fell five spots in the year-end FIBA World Women’s Rankings. The main event of the FIBA Asia Cup for Women wasn’t India’s Division B victory, but Japan securing a three-peat at the championship in the thrilling Division A final over Australia.

FIBA calculates their rankings based on performances in top official FIBA competitions and their qualifiers, with points based on home and away games, strength of opposition, recency, region, rounds, and more.

Although India’s senior and youth women squads performed well in the lower divisions of their respective championships, their victories did not have a big effect on the final rankings of the year because of the strength of their opposition and the rounds they played in. India’s senior men’s team played in their own FIBA Asia Cup and World Cup qualifiers but performed poorly and failed to make gains in their rankings, too.

India’s Senior Women’s team played in the FIBA Asia Cup for Women in Bengaluru, winning Division B after a 5-0 record. The team was coached by Serbian Zoran Visic and captained by veteran Anitha Paul Durai, who ended up as India’s top scorer at the tournament. 22-year-old Grima Merlin Varghese was the surprise package for the squad and should now feel confident of playing a major role in the team in the future, too. Raspreet Sidhu, Kavita Akula, Jeena Scaria, and Rajapriyadarshani Rajaganapathi, and Shireen Limaye were all part of India's main rotation throughout the tournament. The team’s ranking fell five spots, 40 to 45.

The senior Men’s team played poorly in their corresponding tournament: the FIBA Asia Cup for Men in Lebanon in August. Even the coaching of NBA veteran American coach Phil Weber didn’t help to propel the team to better results. India finished the tournament 0-3 in the preliminary round and didn't qualify for a chance at the knockout stage. Amjyot Singh led the team in scoring (13.0 ppg) and assists (4.3 apg) and was one of the squad's few bright sparks. Amritpal Singh had the team's best efficiency rating and led them in rebounds (8.7 rpg). Arvind Annadurai did a good job in his role while 17-year-old point guard Baladhaneshwar Poiyamozhi showed potential that he could rise to be an answer for the team in the PG position in the future.

At the FIBA World Cup 2019 Qualifiers, India’s Men began Group C with two uninspiring losses to Lebanon (away) and Syria (home). India were coached by Visic in these games, but the short-handed team failed to deliver. Their only bright spark was Satnam Singh - averaging 11.5 points and 8.0 rebounds per game - but even he was expected to be much more dominant with the opportunity to start for the national team. India’s Men’s rankings stayed static at 64.

Visic oversaw some happier times with the Women’s youth squad in Bengaluru’s FIBA U16 Asia Cup for Women. Like the senior women’s team, India dominated Division B of the competition, winning all five of their games in comfortable fashion and securing a qualification to Division A in front of their home fans. The biggest star to emerge for India from this championship was Uttar Pradesh girl Vaishnavi Yadav, who finished the tournament as Division B's leader in points (20.4 ppg) and joint leader, with another Indian Neha Karwa, in assists (6.2). Yadav was also India's second-best player on the boards, grabbing 8.8 rebounds per contest. The team's captain Pushpa Senthil Kumar was also a major force in the post, finishing as the division's second-best rebounder (13.2 rpg). Karwa was a steady presence for India all tournament, too, and could be a guard to watch for the future. The team’s efforts helped India rise one spot to 37 in the Girls’ rankings.

The 2017 FIBA U16 Asia Championship for Men, originally slated to be held in Malaysia, wasn’t held this year. Despite being out of action, the performances drop of teams in other regions actually helped India rise in the Boys’ rankings six spots to 46.

USA continued to dominate world basketball, ranking at No. 1 in the Men, Women, Boys, and Girls standings. This was the first year that Oceania teams were incorporated in Asia, and Australia became the top-ranked teams in both the Asian Men and Women’s divisions. China led the rankings for Asian Boys and Girls.

India’s FIBA rankings at end of 2017

• Men: 64 (65.0 points; Change 0).
• Women: 45 (15.0 points; Change -5).
• Boys: 46 (16.2 points; Change +6).
• Girls: 37 (30.9 points; Change +1).

India’s long journey to qualify for the 2019 FIBA World Cup begins

This article was first published in my 'Hoopistani' column on The Times of India Sports on November 19, 2017. Read the original version here.

Thirty-seven years ago, in the pleasant late-summer in Moscow, Indian basketball made history. A series of fortuitous circumstances—including a golden generation of Indian basketball stars and a series of international diplomatic breakdowns—made India an unlikely entrant in the Men’s basketball fray of the 1980 Summer Olympics. India were the weakest team in the tournament and lost all seven of their games. Still, it was the competitive high-point in Indian hoops, an achievement that has never been matched again.

Indian basketball has since dipped out of contention of major world tournaments, and India has generally been one of the weaker teams in the Asian level, too. But now, the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) has introduced a new competition system that could help India gain international experience and have a chance to participate against world superpowers at the highest-level.

In a few days, India will begin their First Round games of the 2019 FIBA World Cup Qualifiers. India has never played in the World Cup (formerly known as the FIBA World Championship), which FIBA is now angling as a competition with equal prestige as the Olympics. The road ahead to be amongst the 32 best teams to play at the tournament in China in August/September 2019 will be difficult for the Indian Men (currently ranked 64). But India has been able to unearth a number of exciting young players in recent years with better scouting and development. For the current “golden generation”, the road to play in a prestigious world tournament begins now.

India have been drawn in Group C for the First Round of the World Cup’s Asian Qualifiers, along with Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. India will play each team in home and away between November 2017 to July 2018. To qualify for the Second Round, India have to finish amongst the top three of their group. The Second Round will be held between September 2018 to February 2019, where India will have to finish top three from their group of six.

India’s last major basketball appearance was at the FIBA Asia Cup in Lebanon in August. Despite entering with high expectations, India performed poorly, losing all three of their preliminary stage games and being ousted in the First Round. Two of those losses came against Jordan and Syria, and in the World Cup Qualifiers ahead, India will have a chance to make amends.

India’s first two qualifying games are on the road against Lebanon on November 23 and then, back home in Bengaluru, for a historic first qualifying home game against Syria on November 26. The next international breaks of qualifiers for India will be held in late February and June/July 2018.

After helping India’s women’s senior and under-16 squads put up respectable performances at FIBA Asia events earlier this year, Serbian head coach Zoran Visic has been named head coach of India’s men’s squad for the first string of qualifying games, too. Visic is a FIBA World Instructor and has over 34 years of professional basketball coaching experience across Serbia, Romania, Russia, Yugoslavia, Lebanon, and Singapore. He will be assisted in coaching the team with former international player Sambhaji Kadam.

The final, 12-man roster of India’s squad was released by the BFI on Saturday. India will be captained by veteran point guard Akilan Pari and will feature one of the country's top players Amritpal Singh, who is on international break from his professional club in Australia's NBL, the Sydney Kings. Amritpal is sure to be the team's centrepiece in the next two games. India is loaded with talented bigs, including the country's first-ever NBA draft pick and former NBA G-League player Satnam Singh, former G-League draft pick Palpreet Singh Brar, Rikin Pethani, Jagdeep Singh Bains, Aravind Annadurai, and more. 

However, the team will be without the services of two of their top three players: Amjyot Singh, who is playing for the OKC Blue of the NBA G-League; and Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, who is recovering from a right knee injury. 

India has featured a string of talented post players in recent years. Unfortunately, the team will again be relying too much on the performance of the bigs. Amritpal, Satnam, Palpreet, and co. can all be wonderfully dominant under the basket, but India is weak in terms of ball-handlers and creative wing players. There will be a lot of pressure for Pari to outplay opposing point guards, and the qualifiers will also be a good litmus test for his young back, Prudhvi Reddy. Without Bhriguvanshi, however, India will again struggle for consistency in setting up their offense as they did when he was hurt at the FIBA Asia Cup. Without Amjyot, they will also need more offense from sharp-shooter Prasanna Venkatesh from the wing. 

Lebanon, who made it to the Quarter-Finals of the FIBA Asia Cup, will be a handful for India, especially on their home court. It is unlikely that a weakened Indian squad will be able to earn a victory in Beirut in their first game, but they should be prepared for the second matchup against Syria later in the week. India will be in the comfort of home, playing in front of home fans at the Sri Kantaveera Stadium in Bengaluru, against their weakest competitor in this group. Syria defeated India two months ago, but a more focused performance this time around could help India get a morale-boosting international victory.

Finishing in top three in the group is attainable for India, and with the rise of the next generation of young stars, the team can hope for a strong performance looking ahead into the Second Round of qualifiers, too. Qualifying for the 2019 World Cup might be unlikely, but the matches will surely help India gain some valuable international experience. Hopefully, it prepares the next generation of the squad to make new history and have the national team playing at the highest basketball level once again.

How the G-League has become a stepping stone for India’s NBA dreams

This article was first published in my 'Hoopistani' column on The Times of India Sports on November 4, 2017. Read the original version here.

Amjyot Singh is used to being a centrepiece on the basketball court. For the past six years, the 25-year-old, 6-foot-8 power forward has never played for a basketball team where he hasn’t featured in a leading role. He has been India’s leading scorer for half a decade of international competitions, starred at the domestic level for IOB (Chennai), Punjab Police, and the UBA League’s Delhi Capitals, and even when playing professionally abroad, has been a game-changer for successful teams in the Summer and Development Leagues in Japan.

But on a Friday night in Oklahoma City, deep in the Great Plains of central United States, Amjyot was sidelined. He sat on the bench through the whole game as the Oklahoma City Blue—the NBA G-League team that had drafted him two weeks earlier—secured a tense comeback victory over the Rio Grande Valley Vipers. It was the first time since he was a wide-eyed teenager in Chandigarh that he wasn’t an important contributor to his squad.

And yet, he would count it as one of the greatest days of his life.

Just two days before the game, Amjyot had secured his place in the final roster of the Blue, ensuring a contract with the team and suiting up in the team’s blue-and-white jersey. The day before the game, Amjyot posed proudly in his new ‘Singh 13’ jersey.

On his nonguaranteed contract, his future is blurry. He could be cut in the chance of an injury, of another prospect, or a player sent down from the Blue’s NBA’s affiliate, the Oklahoma City Thunder. He is likely to be the last man off the bench on the Blue’s roster until he proves his worth. But even in these uncertain times, the G-League possibility has shown him a path forward to his dreams that international prospects like him couldn’t even have envisioned several years ago.

The NBA, the world’s finest basketball association, launched their official Development League in 2001 with just eight teams, but with the ambition for it to eventually become into a true minor league ‘farm’ system to develop talent. Over the past decade and a half, this minor league has grown rapidly. Now, the recently renamed ‘G-League’ has 26 teams, each with a one-to-one affiliation with an NBA franchise. Over the past four years, around 15 percent of G-League players have received “call-ups” to play in the NBA.

The NBA remains every basketball player’s ultimate destination, the finest level of the game with promise of legacy, competition, fame, and money. But only the rarest of the rare cases make it to this stage.

Most other hoop dreamers around the world have to settle for other options. Players in North America have had a competitive NCAA college basketball circuit and other minor leagues. Professional leagues around the world—from Europe to China to Australia—have been alternative tickets to basketball success for so many others while they kept their NBA ambitions alive.

But the expanded presence of the G-League has helped create the most direct secondary option for players who are on the cusp of an NBA roster, who need to refine and retool their games enough to make those dreams come true. Additionally, it has become an option for NBA teams to stack their assets, to oversee young, raw players develop into future potential contributors.

Two and a half years ago, Punjab-born seven-footer Satnam Singh made history when he became the first Indian to be drafted into the NBA. Satnam was picked by the Dallas Mavericks, who immediately placed him in their minor league affiliate squad Texas Legends. Satnam played for the Legends for two years, earning bit minutes off the bench and never impressing enough to warrant an NBA call-up. Last month, he announced that he would be leaving the G-League behind to continue his basketball journey back home in India.

Last year, Palpreet Singh, another Punjabi big man, was drafted into the G-League by the Long Island Nets, but he never made the team’s final roster after training camp.

When he was drafted with the 103rd pick of the 2017 draft (the 25th pick of the fourth and final round) by the Blue, Amjyot became the third Indian citizen in a space of three years to begin an affair with the G-League.

Amjyot is the eldest, most-experienced, and most talented of the three, but still no closer to playing in the NBA itself. No Indian has yet made an NBA debut. The rise of the G-League, however, has suddenly opened new doors for Indian prospects. Realistically, his path to the NBA is still highly improbable; but thanks to the G-League, players like him can begin to envision the path for the first time.

As the league’s profile continues to rise, watch for many more Indians to follow on Satnam, Palpreet, and Amjyot’s footsteps in the near future. One of those players will eventually become a centrepiece for their team, become a G-League star, and make the next big leap and become the first Indian in the NBA.

Short of NBA opportunities, basketball trail-blazer Satnam Singh returns to India

This article was first published in my blog for The Times of India Sports on October 12, 2017. Click here to read the original piece.

In the climactic moment to the documentary about him “One in a Billion”, Satnam Singh is in New York City, being driven to the 2015 NBA Draft. It is a life-changing convention that turns selected amateur athletes into full professionals in the world’s most-prestigious basketball league. Even at 19, Satnam has already lived numerous lifetimes: with the help of basketball, he has gone from a small, nondescript Punjabi village to an American education and world-class basketball training at the IMG Basketball Academy in Florida.

Now, he is en route to discover his destiny, suited in his sharpest gear, but looking as nervous as you would ever see a seven-foot giant. He is about to find out if years of toil and turmoil will lead him to the ultimate glory: a selection in the NBA, making him the first Indian citizen to be drafted into the league in its seven-decade history.

In the car on the way to the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn, Satnam talks to the agents and friends and mentions how Yao Ming opened the door for basketball in China. Someone tells him encouragingly, that he, too, has already opened the door. Satnam, in broken English, a language barrier that haunted him in his days at the IMG Academy, responds, “Just opened the lock,” he says with a sly smile. “Not door. Just opened the lock.”

A few hours later, history will be made. The NBA’s Deputy Commissioner will call Satnam’s name on behalf of the Dallas Mavericks with the 52nd pick of the draft. A young man’s life—and an entire country’s basketball expectations—will never be the same again.

Little did Satnam know that, his words on Draft Day would become a self-prophecy. After being drafted, Satnam spent the next two years with the Maverick’s affiliate team in the NBA’s minor basketball league (NBA G-League) team Texas Legends. He played only 7.1 minutes per game in 27 appearances over two years, averaging just 1.6 points and 1.4 rebounds. The NBA dream and those over-enthused Yao Ming comparisons seemed to loom too far in the horizon.

Satnam was right: by getting drafted, he had only unlocked the possibility of an Indian even making it into the conversation of NBA athletes. The door for him still remained shut.

Earlier this week, frustrated with lack of opportunity and playing time, Satnam told gathered reporters at an event organised by the General Nutrition Centre in Mumbai that he had decided to return to India to develop his game.

“I had a big problem with no playing time at NBA,” Satnam said to India Today. “I would lose my mind.”

Now, he is hoping that India, and added opportunity, will help him showcase his skillset again. With additional competitive time on court, he hopes to improve this game as well as attract the attention of scouts again.

“If I play here, I will get more game time and my game will improve,” he said to The Field. “I just want to play and work on my skills and moves. If I want to improve my game, I will need somebody who I can work with.”

His decision is somewhat surprising, considering that Satnam joined fellow Punjabi baller TJ Sahi to comment last month that there was “no future” for basketball in India and aspiring players should look for opportunities abroad.

The lack of elite-level competition and no full-time professional league has hampered the growth and opportunities for numerous Indian basketball stars, which is why, many of our top current players—Amritpal Singh, Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, Amjyot Singh—are looking for professional opportunities abroad. Satnam, who blazed the trail (while still being the youngest of them all) seems to have taken a step back to his roots.

“Now I have come back to India. I will play for the Indian team,” Satnam said to India Today. “I will work on my game as much as I can. I will play for Punjab, any small tournament. I want playing time. The more I play my game will improve.”

Satnam’s last foray with the Indian national team - at the prestigious FIBA Asia Cup in Lebanon in August - didn’t go as well as he would have expected. He was not in ideal game shape and was behind Amritpal, Amjyot, and Arvind Annadurai in the big man rotation. He played less than nine minutes per game and couldn’t help India as they lost all three of their preliminary round games.

If he continues to stay fit, however, he should have no trouble eventually getting playing time in India. He will likely play for Punjab in national tournaments and hopefully find a place for himself in the UBA Basketball League. He will have to evolve his style to fit into the faster pace of the game, which was part of his struggle in breaking into the Texas Legends line-up back in the United States, too.

By returning to India for more playing opportunity, Satnam will be sacrificing the exposure, facilities, and competition that was available to him in the US. Could playing without a fully professionalised league, against inferior opponents, with worse coaching and infrastructure, truly help him find future international opportunities?

From farming in the Ballo Ke village in Punjab to rubbing shoulders with the best in the basketball world, Satnam has already taken Indian basketball further than anyone before him. Indeed, he has unlocked the door to the NBA. Hopefully he - or a successor — will kick it wide open very soon.

Indian basketball role models Satnam Singh and TJ Sahi told the youth there is no hope in the country. Were they wrong?

This article was first published in my blog for The Times of India Sports on September 14, 2017. Click here to read the original piece.

Talwinderjit Singh “TJ” Sahi and Satnam Singh both started on the bench for the Indian national team in summer, as the squad played—and failed—at the prestigious FIBA Asia Cup in Lebanon. India lost all three of their preliminary round games and returned home disappointed. An injury to one of India’s most important players—Vishesh Bhriguvanshi—forced Sahi to play a slightly larger role than expected; Satnam, however, played less than ten minutes per game and his contributions were almost insignificant.

Sahi (33) and Satnam (21), two of India’s most-popular basketball players, are on opposing stages of their respective careers. Sahi, an uber-athletic 6-foot-1 point guard from Punjab, has been in and out of India’s national system for a decade. Over a colourful career, he has had serious clashes with basketball and government authority in his state and the country, found himself embroiled in multiple controversies, and faced expulsion from the national squad because of those controversial stands. Nevertheless, his offensive talent and India’s shortage of star perimeter players ensured his return to national colours over the past few years.

Satnam, meanwhile, is Indian basketball’s golden boy. At 9, he was a farmer’s son in a small Punjabi village. By 14, he was recruited into the world-class IMG Academy in the United States to hone his basketball skills. By 19, he made history by becoming the first Indian to be drafted into the NBA. This summer, after spending the last two years playing for the NBA G-League squad Texas Legends, Satnam returned to the Indian national team for the first time since 2013.

And despite these differences in career trajectories, both players came together earlier this week to create new controversy. Speaking to a national daily in Ludhiana, Sahi and Satnam told the youth that there was no hope for basketball in the country and that aspiring players should head abroad to create a name for themselves in the sport.

“After I was selected for the NBA league, I was given an amount of Rs 11,000 by former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal,” said Satnam. “The central government did not give me anything.”

Sahi said: “I have been playing since the age of 10. I have given more than 20 years of my life to basketball. But I have got nothing in return. In the past eight years, I have met Badal at least 20 times at his residence to request him for a job but to no avail.”

On motivating the youth, Sahi added: “How can we motivate young players towards a game, which we know has no future in India? So I tell students to study hard, go abroad and fulfil their dreams.”

Based on the early reactions to their comments, a number of young Indian players have begun to share this sentiment. Basketball in India, frankly, has been a mess for decades and even big moments of success and development have come as patronising consolation prizes for a country that has potential for so much more. India has the world’s largest youth population with a theoretically sound structure in sports, from the Ministry of Youth and Sport Affairs, the Sport Authority of India, the Indian Olympic Association, the Basketball Federation of India (BFI), and the smaller federations in each state to oversee the game’s growth. But these systems rarely perform their function like they are supposed to, and the mismanagement of the authorities often leave players facing an uphill struggle.

There is no full-time professional basketball league in India and most of the top players have to rely on jobs in various service units like ONGC or Punjab Police and play the game as semi-pros. Veterans, like Sahi, are right to complain that work opportunities begin to dry up for some retired or close-to-retirement players.

Younger players face a different problem: cases like Satnam—where a player is given scholarship to learn the game abroad—are rare. There are many other younger players in the country whose potential is being wasted because of lack of youth coaching and scouting facilities.

Over the past few years alone, Indian basketball faced a major crisis as the BFI broke up into two competing factions. Each faction pressured state federations to support them and keep the player’s availability exclusive to their respective sides. Players were punished for reporting for national tournaments or international camps and briefly barred in taking part in the short UBA Basketball League. Last year, basketball was de-recognised entirely from the South Asian Games and the players in the men’s and women’s national teams couldn’t earn credit for their participation. In all these cases, it has been the players who have almost always been the victims of the political tug-of-war.

The BFI crisis seems to have resolved somewhat this year, but its sour aftertaste remains, and in individual cases like Sahi and Satnam, a reminder that there are many more battles to be win. From Jayasankar Menon to Sozhasingarayer Robinson, there are dozens of precursors to Sahi to have clashed with authority and seen their career stumble. Last month, Prashanti Singh joined the rare club of basketball players to win an Arjuna Award, yet her nomination wasn’t filed through the federation and the BFI has yet to acknowledge her remarkable feat.

In Indian basketball, most of the success has come due to individual breakout talents rather than the system, and like Sahi suggested, has often happened abroad. This year, Punjab’s Amritpal Singh and Varanasi’s Vishesh Bhriguvanshi took a major leap by signing contracts in Australia’s National Basketball League (NBL). Amjyot and Amritpal both played professionally in Japan in the past. Palpreet Singh Brar won the ACG-NBA Jump programme and was drafted by the NBA G-League last year. And of course, there’s Satnam, whose IMG Academy training led him to the NBA Draft.

But, despite there being some truth to their statements, Sahi and Satnam weren’t completely accurate in their assessment. Only the smallest percentage of players will have the fortune of winning a once-in-a-lifetime scholarship like the IMG Academy, or get recruited into the NBA’s own elite basketball academy (launched in Greater Noida earlier this year). For the rest, climbing the rungs of the Indian basketball ladder is often the best option.

Take India’s best three players—Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, Amjyot Singh and Amritpal Singh—for example. If it wasn’t for their performances at the Indian national team, neither would have been considered by scouts abroad. Bhriguvanshi, Amjyot, and Amritpal have faced struggles because of the system’s ineptitude too, but they worked hard nevertheless, became star players for the country, and their reward is the opportunities they are now getting abroad.

The ‘system’ should be blamed for its inadequacies when appropriate, but it can’t be the scapegoat for every failure. In the interview, Sahi and Satnam blamed the federation selectors and inexperienced younger players for India’s poor performances in Lebanon. “The young players lacked experience,” they said, while Sahi later added India’s loss to Jordan was partially the fault of “selection of team by the Federation.”

But in the run-up to the tournament, team selection was the least of India’s problems. Featuring the best available players and a necessary mix of veterans and youth, many believed the Asia Cup squad to be one of the strongest Indian rosters ever assembled. Plus, team selection doesn’t answer for Sahi and Satnam’s limited roles. Many younger players were in better shape at camp and more eager to be a better fit for the national side. A share of the blame lies with the two players themselves.

If there are any real excuses for India’s poor performance, it came from the head coach Phil Weber, whom I interviewed for Scroll last month: health and lack-of-preparation. Several of our top players (including Satnam) were unavailable in the early few weeks of the camp, and many others (like Sahi) were still hampered by injury. The most damaging of these injuries was the one to Bhriguvanshi, without whom India had no organiser in the backcourt when the going got tough.

The problems that Sahi and Satnam have shed light on will continue to persist, however, until a full-time basketball league allows players to become exclusively basketball professionals and continue to have employment opportunities in the game once they retire. On the other end of the spectrum, better coaching and infrastructure is needed at the grassroots level to properly nurture and support young players.

As for the current debate between staying in India or going abroad, it all boils down to the priority of the individual player—whether it is focusing on one’s own career or hoping to improve the larger system—and there is no wrong answer. Players with ambition have every right to make the most of outside opportunities—if they are lucky enough to have such opportunities available—to make a name for themselves. But if they really want to bring change and “hope” into Indian basketball, they can make the most of their expertise and influence to aid the development of youth basketball back home.

Prashanti Singh joins the very short list of women’s basketball players with an Arjuna Award

This article was first published in my blog for The Times of India Sports on August 27, 2017. Click here to read the original piece.

The Arjuna Award is named after perhaps one the greatest sharpshooters in human mythology. Arjun, the great protagonists of The Mahabharat, was a famed archer and marksmen, and the modern Arjuna Award—instituted by the Indian government—has adopted a bronze statuette of Arjun in a pose of brief meditation before he readies to release the arrow off his bowstring.

This week, another phenomenal marksmen in a completely different field of sport will be getting her dues. Prashanti Singh, the former captain of India’s basketball team, will join the short list of Indian basketball players to win the prestigious Arjuna Award after over a decade of basketball excellence domestically and service to the national team. The 33-year-old shooting guard from Varanasi will become just the third women in history to win an Arjuna Award for basketball.

Singh comes from a family of basketball royalty, even though this royalty originated in a small town with a more strenuous path to climb the ladder of athletic success. Despite the odds, Singh and her sisters battled the traditional patriarchal society to produce an array of basketball stars for the country. Three of her sisters—Divya, Akanksha, and Pratima—joined Prashanti to star for Delhi at the domestic stage and play for India in international tournaments. Her eldest sister Priyanka played domestically and has been a NIS coach. The “Singh Sisters” of Varanasi remain some of the most popular and influential faces in Indian Basketball.

Prashanti Singh, also known by her nickname ‘Boskey’, is now the most decorated women basketball player in India, holding the national record for most number of medals (23) in national championships, most of which came for Delhi while she was an employee for MTNL.  She has represented the national team in the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the 2010 and 2014 Asian Games, and six FIBA Asia Women’s Championships (2004, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013), plus one more at the junior level.

Singh has had several memorable moments in the India jersey abroad. At the 2011 FIBA Asia Championship in Japan, she helped India defeat Malaysia to qualify for Level 1 of the tournament. Her personal highlight was the 35-point performance in India’s upset victory over Korea Samsung at the 2011 William Jones Cup in Taiwan. She also played a role in India’s best-ever FIBA ABC finish – fifth place at the ABC in Thailand in 2014 – in an overtime win over Kazakhstan.

With this honour, Singh becomes just the 20th basketball player in the country to receive the Arjuna Award over the past 56 years. What is more startling, however, is that she is only the third women to be bestowed this honour. In 1983, former national captain Suman Sharma became the first Indian women to win an Arjuna Award for basketball. Three years ago, Indian hoops legend Geethu Anna Rahul (formerly Jose) became the second.

Singh’s award, however, makes her the second basketball player in succession to get the Arjuna, and it sure to motivate young women around the country—no matter what their background and launch-pad might be—to pursue greater things in the sport. And she will surely not be the last. Already, the campaign has begun to consider the Indian basketball team’s current captain—Tamil Nadu born Anitha Paul Durai—to be the next player in consideration. Paul Durai has played in eight FIBA Asia Championships, played professionally in Thailand, and won medals for India in international 3×3 championships.

With the sport beginning to get more recognition in the country, there are a number of male players waiting in the flank for their name to be called, too. The current “Big Three” of stars in the Men’s national team—Vishesh Bhriguvanshi, Amjyot Singh, and Amritpal Singh—have been centrepieces for a relatively strong stretch in Indian basketball over the past few years. Another player to consider will be Satnam Singh, who became the first Indian to be drafted into the NBA in 2015.

Currently, Basketball lacks far behind Hockey, Cricket, and Football when it comes to the prestigious national honour, but as the sport continues to grow in India, look for more Prashantis to be in line for the future.