Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2015 7:10 pm Post subject: Satnam Singh Becomes First Indian Player Drafted Into The NBA
Quote:
By Brian Kotloff, NBA.com International
BROOKLYN, N.Y. – A monumental year for Indian basketball grew even more historic on Thursday night in New York.
Satnam Singh Bhamara, a 19-year-old from the small village of Ballo Ke, Punjab, became the first Indian-born player ever selected in the NBA Draft. The Dallas Mavericks chose the 7-foot-2, 290-pound center with the 52nd overall pick in the 60-pick draft.
Upon hearing his name called, Singh hugged his two cousins in attendance, walked down from his seat in the Barclays Center stands and greeted Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum with a hug on stage. He walked off with tears in his eyes.
“It was awesome. He just made history, made us all proud,” said his cousin, Sunny Singh. “He put his country on the map, opened the doorways to all the kids in India that want to play basketball.”
The groundbreaking news comes less than three months after Canadian-born 22-year-old Sim Bhullar – a giant himself at 7-foot-5, 360 pounds – became the first player of Indian descent to sign an NBA contract and appear in an NBA game.
Satnam Singh said he met Bhullar, who went undrafted last June, in Sacramento and spoke to him in the days leading up to the draft. “He said, ‘Just play hard and work hard over there,’” said Singh.
His eyes still red while making the rounds with media in the minutes that followed, Singh could hardly put the moment – the culmination of a surreal journey that began when he arrived in the U.S. in September 2010 – into words.
“I feel good,” he said. “I feel excited I am now with a team that I can get a lot better [with] the next couple years.”
Singh still struggles with English, but he’s come a long way after not speaking a word of the language five years ago. At 14 and already 7 feet tall, Singh left India for the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., as part of a scholarship program with 28 other Indian student-athletes.
Basketball was a natural fit considering the size that runs in his family. His father, Balbir Singh Bhamara, is 7-2, and his father’s mother is 6-9.
Balbir Singh was a farmer in Ballo Ke, which sits just east of the Pakistan border, and Satnam reportedly expected to do the same. By this past season, he’d grown into an impact center for IMG’s post-graduate basketball team, averaging 9.2 points, 8.4 rebounds and 2.2 blocks for a team ranked No. 2 nationally.
“I don’t think anyone expected him to be here, and he just put in the work,” Sunny said. “He struggled with English. He couldn’t really do [well] in classes at IMG, so he didn’t have the opportunity to go to college, but he kept working hard at his craft, basketball-wise. He made it. It was really difficult, but he made it.”
Satnam said his exposure to NBA basketball began about 10 years ago, when he watched Kobe Bryant and LeBron James on TV. He said he modeled his game off of Dwight Howard, Shaquille O’Neal and Yao Ming.
Now he has a chance to be like Yao in an even greater sense.
“I think [India] will be the next China, especially with him getting drafted,” Sunny said. “He’ll be like the next Yao Ming of India. I think India needed him to open up all the doorways for the kids out there. It is big out there, but the kids don’t have the opportunity, and I think him being here will give them the opportunity.”
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