NBA’s Jr.NBA/Jr.WNBA program making basketball dreams in India a reality

Troy Justice, Sr. Director, Basketball Operations, NBA International conducting a training session

The National Basketball Association (NBA) in collaboration with Hewlett Packard (HP) and the Basketball Federation of India (BFI) launched Jr.NBA/Jr.WNBA program in the spring of 2012 to help in the development of basketball among kids at a young age.

It was first launched in India in 2008 across Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. The program consists of three major components which will be mentioned below.

Aimed at introducing the game to the youth in a fun and exciting way and providing world class training to the coaches the program was launched in 5 cities across India (Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai and Pune). The program is set to impact and improve around 10,000 students and 800 coaches all across the country.

With Adidas being the official outfit partner, it would provide apparel and shoes for the coaches and participants. This marks a huge step in making basketball more popular than already it is in this country.

“The Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA program demonstrates the NBA’s commitment to growing basketball at a grassroots level and will reach more children in its second year as one of the league’s most inclusive programs in India,” said Akash Jain, senior director, Development, NBA India

As mentioned above the NBA has indeed expanded its basketball growth program by implementing its grassroots in 7 cities across India.

Apart from its motive of growing the game’s popularity among the youth with this program, the NBA has constantly focused on expanding the league’s audience in the country with close to 14 live NBA games being aired on Sony Six and close to 200 Adidas stores across the country have available the widest assortment of NBA merchandise.

The most recent addition to this program has been the Jr.NBA/Jr.WNBA skills challenge. Held for the first time in 2011, it is the pivot and most major component of this program especially with the prizes to be won.

Boys and Girls within the age group of 10-12 will compete in the Skills challenge in each city. The challenge measures the youngsters in key basic techniques of the game such as dribbling, passing and shooting. The number of participants is no small number – 2,000.

The top 5 boys and girls will represent their city at the Jr.NBA/Jr.WNBA National Finals. The boy and girl with the best time would be crowned the Champions and will not just win a trip to a live NBA game but also the chance to train with an NBA coach and receive NBA merchandise. It’s quite a motivation for kids who are avid followers of the game in this country.

“With a very strong focus on the youth of the country, Jr. NBA/Jr. WNBA will help create yet another platform with the NBA to reach our young and active audiences while promoting the game of basketball,” said HP India Chief Marketing Officer, PSG, Ranjivjit Singh.

This program gives huge support and a chance to the coaches across India to grow in their profession as they are provided with the components of the program such as coaching clinics and another called is “basketball in a box”. The latter is a collection of all merchandise such as basketball whistles, nets, coaching boards and manuals, needed for the coaches to further spread and improve the game of basketball in the country.

NBA coaches lead coaching clinics in each city with the “Train the Trainer” program affecting over a 100 coaches in each city. All coaches and physical instructors are provided access to videos, photos and materials to implement the proper physical training on a dedicated Jr.NBA/Jr.WNBA microsite on NBA. Com.

Program partners HP will provide laptops and dream screen to make the training sessions more interesting and enhance the training procedure.

The NBA plans to continue such programs not only in India but across the globe in over 65 countries to achieve the goal of spreading the beautiful game of basketball to countries who do not have as much as access to the sport compared to cities across America.