Gonna need to build some courts first

Well I don't know about the actual country India, but I'm noticing kids in the states, east indian kids, dribbling basketballs in the street, and going to the parks playing. Its only a matter of time.

Its gonna be like any other sport......the mens gymnastics team had a kid with chinese blood and another with some east indian blood. Its only a matter of time before an asian american pops up and has a successfull pro career in hoops.

I think its a shame how we want to recruit outside the country when the talent is here.

How many times have you seen a mexican kid, or an asian kid, or an east indian kid get his dreams shut down just cuz nobody wants to encourage the kid and try to teach them the game? My sons brother was in a little recreation center basketball league. He was in the 8-10 league. They were expecting the kids to be mad nice already. There was no teaching involved and the only kids that got run were kids that already knew how to play. It was so bad that the coaches stop showing up, so the parents had to help. I took over my kids brothers team for the remainder of the year. Don't you know the kids that "couldn't play" was now playing lock down defense and passing the ball like no other? There's more than one way to play and our coaches here in the states are not doing their jobs......there was a mexican kid for example that couldn't dribble or shoot for **** but he was quick and was stealing anything cleanly if you dared to try and dribble in front of him. The kids had fun and they got better. Their confidence was up. They were having fun instead of acting like it was a punishment.

As I keep saying, the nba and this country as a whole need to take care of our own. There are all types of races lurking in the country that need help.
Question....ever seen an nba presence in your state? How bout in nyc? I'm not talking JR. Knicks......I'm talking nba coaches and players teaching the game to kids the way they do it overseas......ever see that? I'm not talking bout 3 day camps were you gotta pay thousands of dollars to hear John Starks talk about bagging groceries.

Its a damn shame.

Isiah is that you?

Posted by VDesai:

Gonna need to build some courts first

You have been living in the boonies V India has basketball courts they usually use the basketball pole to tie the animals to. In the cities the parks have basketball courts and every major university has basketball courts. Take it from me I played college basketball there in India this was 10 years ago. The country has made advances in that reguard.

Posted by EnySpree:

Btw.....I would love to visit India. .....
Also to go on another tangent, anybody like to go to Hookah bars? Anybody smoke here Bidis? Edit: because I do......both

[Edited by - enyspree on 20-08-2008 11:05 PM]

Eny, that is why you need to do the juice fast!

The problem is that the government doesn't throw in a ton of money at sports. Yeah universities will have courts, but they're not readily available in most towns (at least the ones my family there are from) when you are growing up. As Markji said its a cricket culture- the only sport that really matters. But even with that, they only really started a major national cricket league within the past year.

This is not like the Chinese government which places a directive on sports and has been training Yao and players like him since birth (practically), and have them playing for their government sponsored miliatary teams.

Indian Americans are a different story. Most Indian Americans that I grew up with love basketball and have been playing since they were kids. I think we'll eventually see one make it to the NBA (although they haven't sneaked into major college bball yet from what I recall)

Posted by EnySpree:

Btw.....I would love to visit India. I'm assuming some of you guys have been there or lived there as Vmart just indicated. Edit: any ideas or advice on planning a trip out there?

if you're not the adventurous type - like staying in hostel's, backpacking, etc...then just do a tour. it will cost somewhere around $2800 for a 9 day tour where you hit 3 big tourist spots up north. it's hectic trip physically (flight, land travel, etc) and you will see alot of poor people, but it's also very spritual.

http://www.pacificdelighttours.com/cov-india07-r1/cov-india.pdf