Good response for basketball trials

Chennai has always been a sports loving city. Basketball. hockey, football. volleyball, chess and table tennis has its own followers. The people who run various sports in the city are mostly honorary secretaries and in the last decade or so, particularly in the last five years, there has been a spurt in the number of tournaments. This has led to more and more children taking up various sports at the grass-roots level. The SDAT too has been doing their best to improve the infrastructure in the city.

Taking in to account Chennai’s sports-centric people, the National Basketball Association (NBA) along with Hewlett-Packard and Basketball Federation of India, organised the City Skills Challenge Championship of the Jr NBA and Jr WNBA. Troy Justice, Sr Director, Basketball Operations International, NBA, conducted the trials at the JJ Indoor Stadium.

The initiative of various basketball coaches in the city resulted in almost 1200 children turning up for the Jr NBA trials. “It is amazing to see so many children line up for the skills challenge,’’ said Justice, who was overwhelmed by the response from the children.

“Children of the ages of 10, 11 and 12 are taking part in the one-day programme. This is a five-city programme (Chennai, Pune, Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh). From every city we select five girls and five boys. The final will be held in Delhi on July 14. We will select the best boy and girl from the 50 players and crown them national champion,’’ said Justice. The fortunate two will get an opportunity to travel to the US and watch NBA live and train.

“The national champions will get an opportunity to see the ‘NBA Oscars’ and get a five-day training in the US,’’ added Justice.

Justice said the method of selection was purely on merit based on time. “Children are put through shooting, dribbling and passing sessions. Whoever completes the sessions in the shortest time is the winner. Height is not a criteria, skill is. Twenty nine seconds was best time achieved by a player so far,’’ said Justice.

Justice, who is based in Mumbai for the last three years, also conducted a workshop for coaches recently.  He believes that there is abundant talent in the country and predicts a bright future for basketball in India.