NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced the first meeting between two NBA clubs in India in October 2019 in Mumbai, Indiana Pacers and Sacramento Kings in the prelude to the 2019-2020 season.
“Our inaugural NBA India Games will help (unleash) the enormous basketball potential in a country with a thriving sports culture and a growing, young and engaged population. We thank the Kings and Pacers organizations for participating in this historic event.” Silver said.
The Pacers and Kings will compete twice on October 4 and 5 at the NSCI Dome in Mumbai, and their meetings will be broadcast live to a potential audience of 1.2 billion viewers.
NBA has its global games all over the world with Mexico becoming the latest venue to host regular season games involving three teams: Orlando Magic, Utah Jazz and Chicago Bulls.
“Sacramento Kings always wanted to be the first NBA team to visit India for obvious reason. It’s owner, Viviek Randive, was born in Mumbai and was very keen to bring his team to the city of his birth.” NBA assistant commissioner Mark Tatum said.
Fittingly, one of the teams playing the games will be the Kings, which has the NBA’s first Indian-born majority owner and Mumbai-native Vivek Ranadive as its chairman.
“As an Indian-American, it is honor to help bring this historic moment to the country where I was raised. The sport is experiencing tremendous growth in India and we are excited about continuing to expand the NBA’s reach to fans across the globe. The world wants to watch basketball and India is a fast-growing new frontier.” Randive said.
Indiana Pacers basketball stars. (Source:www.thestraittimes.com)
The Pacers, 4th in the East Association this season with 20 wins against 12 defeats, include star player Victor Oladipo and Lithuanian Domantas Sabonis in their ranks.
For its part, Sacramento has a mixed record with 16 successes and 15 defeats in the West. But the problem for them lies in the fact that there are too many good teams in their division.
Youth workshops and awareness-raising activities will also be organized in Mumbai by the NBA, which opened a training center for India’s top basketball hopefuls in New Delhi in 2017, and an office in Mumbai in 2011.
