Being an NBA fan in India even a decade ago was an isolating experience. With few live games and little information, the world’s biggest basketball league may well have been on another planet.
That has been changing since the NBA set up an office in India in 2011 and began implementing developmental programs to nurture the sport. The league’s latest outreach effort was last week’s three-day visit by Golden State Warriors superstar Kevin Durant.
“It is great to have someone like Kevin Durant come here. It means that we matter enough that the NBA is sending its best player to India,” said Preshit Pawar, a member of the NBA Academy in the New Delhi suburb of Greater Noida, where all 21 of India’s top teenage basketball prospects have been training since the facility opened in May.
After a welcome party hosted by Bollywood star and NBA fan Abhishek Bacchan, Durant got down to the business of promoting basketball, taking part in a practice session with the NBA Academy players and then running drills with thousands of kids in a record-breaking event. He wrapped up his trip with a visit to India’s must-see tourist attraction.
A recurring problem for NBA Academy coaches is convincing their trainees that their methodology is effective. For the youngsters, the academy’s methodical approach of focusing on the basics doesn’t appeal as much as the high-octane action of their NBA idols. Durant’s visit to the academy should help the coaches get their message across.
Durant helped set a Guinness World Record by leading basketball drills with 3,459 youngsters simultaneously participating. About 800 were present at the NBA Academy itself, with the rest joining in by satellite from the cities of Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata.
The drills during the record-setting session were simple enough — some sidestepping movements and a few ballhandling drills. But the fact that they were being conducted by Durant made them all the more special.
Durant conducted a short training session with the NBA Academy’s players, focusing on a pick-and-roll drill that the academy staff had been running over the past month.
At the end of a 20-minute training session, Durant and the NBA Academy players formed a huddle and then broke to the very Indian chant of “Bajrang Bali ki — Jai!” — victory to Lord Hanuman, the patron deity for Indian sportspersons.
Many of the kids in the hall for the record-breaking drills — some of them as young as 6 — won’t pursue the game very seriously, but that wasn’t entirely relevant. These were drills intended to get kids excited, and Durant got them excited.
Carlos Barroca, associate vice president of basketball operations for NBA India, shared the stage with Durant while the Guinness World Record was set. Even some of the NBA Academy members stuck around after their session to take part in the basic drills. “We had just finished our practice session, but we just wanted to interact as much as we could with him,” said Prashant Rawat, an academy trainee.
Durant autographed Warriors jerseys after a news conference at the NBA Academy.
Five lucky fans won a contest to meet Durant and got their picture taken with him.
One fan brought a painting of Durant to the NBA Academy and got it signed.
“These are some of the same things that we teach them at the academy,” Jacques Vandescure, an NBA Academy coach, said about the drills Durant ran with the players. “Often they won’t believe it. They watch the NBA and they are certain that players like Kevin are doing something that’s a huge secret. So when they see Kevin asking them to practice exactly the same things we say, it makes them believe that there is no great trick, that they too can achieve excellence if they try hard enough and follow the process.”
Keeping up enthusiasm in the wake of Durant’s appearance will be crucial if basketball is to secure a permanent place in the Indian sporting consciousness. “Just a buzz around basketball is growing every single day,” Durant said just before the lesson. “The game of basketball is growing.”
A visit to the Taj Mahal wasn’t in Durant’s initial itinerary, and the six-hour round trip from New Delhi to the city of Agra might have discouraged many. It was Durant’s personal wish, however, to visit the 17th-century mausoleum on the last day of the tour.
Durant was just as interested in the Taj Mahal as any other tourist visiting the magnificent structure, which was built in the 1600s as a tomb for the beloved wife of Shah Jahan.
When the celebrity of Durant matched up against that of the Taj Mahal, it’s hard to say who came out on top. Round 1 went to the famous monument. The NBA team wanted to take a picture of Durant posing with the Larry O’Brien Trophy inside the building complex. For security reasons, the golden prize had to wait outside.
When he first arrived at the Taj Mahal, Durant went unrecognized. With visitors from across the world converging on this iconic symbol of India, his anonymity didn’t last long. At one point he was recognized by a group of American tourists. “Hey KD! KD!” they yelled, and he waved back.
Most of the other tourists kept their distance, but one lady was more intrepid. She broke through the ring, walked up to Durant, exchanged a couple of words and walked away. A small security detail helped establish a certain degree of privacy for the NBA star.
Durant eventually got what is a must-have picture for tourists — an optical illusion of him holding up the Taj by the finial above its central dome. It was a perfect way to end this India sojourn — two icons of their respective countries sharing the frame together.