Want to learn basketball, get online

Deepankar Sharda

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 25

The world has come to a halt but the show must go on!

Till a couple of months ago no one would have imagined that sporting skills can be taught online. However, with various countries around the world being forced into a lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic, NBA has introduced a curriculum based online basketball sessions for the young hoopsters who don’t want to lag behind in the prevailing situation.

The programme is open to all international male and female players in the 6-18 years age group.

Marc Pulles, Basketball Operations Team Leader, NBA India, in an interaction with The Tribune said the main aim of the programme was to find a long-term possibility to teach Indian kids basketball through various ways.

“The programme is running online sessions for a total of 17 school partners across the country, including many of the schools from this (north) region and also from the tricity,” said Pulles.

“We had earlier conducted online sessions with our coaches to introduce them to new ways of training,” Pulles added.

“We conduct two online sessions every week. Each session is hosted by two senior demonstrators/coaches wherein around 12-15 children participate. The participants represent various schools that are part of our NBA Basketball Schools network,” Pulles elaborated.

Pulles said off-the-field learning experience was very beneficial for amateurs and beginners. It is for the first time that NBA is organising online sessions and the response, they claim, is encouraging.

“This curriculum has been developed to help players, parents, coaches and over 60 various organisations. It’s a development-based progression that depends on mastering new skills before advancing to the next level. We are certain that this will help us to sustain the momentum even through tough times,” Pulles emphasised.

Talking about the focus area of NBA India, Pulles said the focus was on teaching fundamentals of basketball to young aspirants. “Since there are only limited means of interaction, such programmes will help Indian players to remain in touch with basketball.”

“A session starts with a warm-up, ball handling drills, shooting work and defensive work. We finish with a group discussion on a related topic and also assign some videos to the participants. The minimum requirement is to have a basketball and the rest of the activity can be done even in a small room/area,” Pulles concluded.