Hoop, step and jump, NBA-style

Not only political bridges with Hillary Clinton, US is also trying to build sports bridges with NBA. Mobile ESPN’s Anshul Baijal reports.

It may be purely coincidental, but American politics and sports are seriously trying to make an impact on Indian minds. If Ms Clinton was busy discussing business opportunities with India Inc. in Mumbai (let's not talk about Pakistan-sponsored terror on a sports page), NBA is already exploring business (read: sports) opportunities with India's Generation Next.

If there is a sport that can possibly match the razzmatazz of the Indian Premier League, it is the NBA. Americans swear by the NBA. The 1996 Atlanta Olympics swore by the American Dream Team. NBA gave sports the concept of cheerleaders.

If sport ever got its first dull dose of celebrity touch, it was due to the NBA. Now Indians are getting a feel of it.

There were no 7-foot tall basketball super-stars at downtown Delhi's Select City Mall at south Delhi, but Hoops and Courts (that's how the programme was called) set the ball rolling.

With NBA T-shirts and caps up for grabs, no one minded the extreme humidity as a shooting competition drew a sizeable turnout Friday evening. Music lifted the ambience as one of Delhi's plushest shopping malls turned into a huge basketball arena.

So what's Generation Next saying? One of the winners of the shooting contest, Harshul Khanna, said: "It is a great opportunity for us as NBA has come to town. This initiative will definitely attract lot of people to the court."

The seven-week long interactive basketball experience started in Mumbai last week, where Baron Davis, a lead player of the LA Clippers, conducted a free coaching clinic for kids.

The NBA badwagon will move on and will terminate at Bangalore, July-end.

Friday's star attraction was Indian cricketer Piyush Chawla. Having never played the game before, the leg-spinner was excited to try his hand at the game.

This was a completely different ball-game for the 20-year-old, and initially found it hard to touch the ring. But some cheering from the crowd definitely helped his confidence and he shot five baskets out of 10 in his next attempt.

Chawla feels, the game can survive even in a cricket-crazy nation like India through events like NBA JAM, "There is enough scope for each game in India, and an initiative like this will take the game forward in the country"

NBA JAM, the initiative that was launched in 2008 to promote basketball among children in India, is already making waves and moving in the right direction as it seeks to attract many more takers to the foreign game. And who knows, in a decade or so we might have our very own Kobe Bryant or Le Bron James!